lacking--sadly lacking. In every city there are many five- and
ten-thousand-dollar-a-year positions to be filled, but the only
applicants are men who want jobs at fifteen dollars a week. Your man of
Ability has a place already. Yes, Ability is a rare article.

But there is something that is much scarcer, something finer far,
something rarer than this quality of Ability.

It is the ability to recognize Ability.

The sternest comment that ever can be made against employers as a class,
lies in the fact that men of Ability usually succeed in showing their
worth in spite of their employer, and not with his assistance and
encouragement.

If you know the lives of men of Ability, you know that they discovered
their power, almost without exception, thru chance or accident. Had the
accident not occurred that made the opportunity, the man would have
remained unknown and practically lost to the world. The experience of
Tom Potter, telegraph operator at an obscure little way station, is
truth painted large. That fearful night, when most of the wires were
down and a passenger train went through the bridge, gave Tom Potter the
opportunity of discovering himself. He took charge of the dead, cared
for the wounded, settled fifty claims--drawing drafts on the
company--burned the last vestige of the wreck, sunk the waste iron in
the river and repaired the bridge before the arrival of the
Superintendent on the spot.

"Who gave you the authority to do all this?" demanded the
Superintendent.