2.  But supposing that a young man has acquired this sense of values, he may yet ruin himself before he comes to the fruition of his talent if he will not practise economy.  By economy I mean the economic conduct of his business.  Examine your profit and loss account before you go out to conquer the financial world, and then go out for conquest—­if the account justifies the enterprise.  Too many men spend their time in laying down “pipe-lines” for future profits which may not arrive or only arrive for some newcomer who has taken over the business.  There is nothing like sticking to one line of business until you have mastered it.  A man who has learned how to conduct a single industry at a profit has conquered the obstacles which stand in the way of success in the larger world of enterprise.

3.  Do not try to cut with too wide a swath.  This last rule is the most important of all.  Many promising young men have fallen into ruin from the neglect of this simple principle.  It is so easy for premature ambition to launch men out into daring schemes for which they have neither the resources nor the experience.  Acquire the knowledge of values, practise economy, and learn to read the minds of men, and your technique will then be perfected and ready for use on wider fields.  The instinct for values, the habit of economy, the technique of business, are only three forms of the supreme quality of that judgment which is success.

For these reasons it is the first L10,000 which counts.  There is the real struggle, the test of character, and the warranty of success.  Youth and strength are given us to use in that first struggle, and a man must feel those early deals right down to the pit of his stomach if he is going to be a great man of business.  They must shake the very fibre of his being as the conception of a great picture shakes an artist.  But the first ten thousand made, he can advance with greater freedom and take affairs in his stride.  He will have the confidence of experience, and can paint with a big brush because all the details of affairs are now familiar to his mentality.  With this assured technique nothing will check the career.  “Why,” says the innkeeper in an adaptation from Bernard Shaw’s sketch of Napoleon in Italy, “conquering countries is like folding a tablecloth.  Once the first fold is made, the rest is easy.  Conquer one, conquer all.”

Such in effect is the career of the great captains of industry.  Yet the man who attains, by the practice of these rules, a great fortune, may fail of real achievement and happiness.  He may not be able to recognise that the qualities of the aspirant are not exactly the qualities of the man who has arrived.  The sense of general responsibility must supersede the spirit of private adventure.