Of course, with all the care in the world, a fellow’s likely to catch things, but there’s no sense in sending out invitations to a lot of miscellaneous microbes and pretending when they call that it’s a surprise party.  Bad health hates a man who is friendly with its enemies—­hard work, plain food, and pure air.  More men die from worry than from overwork; more stuff themselves to death than die of starvation; more break their necks falling down the cellar stairs than climbing mountains.  If the human animal reposed less confidence in his stomach and more in his legs, the streets would be full of healthy men walking down to business.  Remember that a man always rides to his grave; he never walks there.

When I was a boy, the only doubt about the food was whether there would be enough of it; and there wasn’t any doubt at all about the religion.  If the pork barrel was full, father read a couple of extra Psalms at morning prayers, to express our thankfulness; and if it was empty, he dipped into Job for half an hour at evening prayers, to prove that we were better off than some folks.  But you don’t know what to eat these days, with one set of people saying that only beasts eat meat, and another that only cattle eat grain and green stuff; or what to believe, with one crowd claiming that there’s nothing the matter with us, as the only matter that we’ve got is in our minds; and another crowd telling us not to mind what the others say, because they’ve got something the matter with their minds.  I reckon that what this generation really needs is a little less pie and a little more piety.

I dwell on this matter of health, because when the stomach and liver ain’t doing good work, the brain can’t.  A good many men will say that it’s none of your business what they do in their own time, but you want to make it your business, so long as it affects what they do in your time.  For this reason, you should never hire men who drink after office hours; for it’s their time that gets the effects, and your time that gets the after-effects.  Even if a boss grants that there’s fun in drinking, it shouldn’t take him long to discover that he’s getting the short end of it, when all the clerks can share with him in the morning is the head and the hangover.

I might add that I don’t like the effects of drinking any more than the after-effects; and for this reason you should never hire men who drink during business hours.  When a fellow adds up on whisky, he’s apt to see too many figures; and when he subtracts on beer, he’s apt to see too few.

It may have been the case once that when you opened up a bottle for a customer he opened up his heart, but booze is a mighty poor salesman nowadays.  It takes more than a corkscrew to draw out a merchant’s order.  Most of the men who mixed their business and their drinks have failed, and the new owners take their business straight.  Of course, some one has to pay for the drinks that a drummer sets up.  The drummer can’t afford it on his salary; the house isn’t really in the hospitality business; so, in the end, the buyer always stands treat.  He may not see it in his bill for goods, but it’s there, and the smart ones have caught on to it.