the till and was attended with more responsibility than the spending
of my own funds. I made up my mind that such business methods could
not succeed.

Passing bills, collecting rents, adjusting claims, and work of this
kind brought me in association with a great variety of people. I had
to learn how to get on with all these different classes, and still
keep the relations between them and the house pleasant. One particular
kind of negotiation came to me which took all the skill I could master
to bring to a successful end.

We would receive, for example, a shipment of marble from Vermont to
Cleveland. This involved handling by railroad, canal, and lake boats.
The cost of losses or damage had to be somehow fixed between these
three different carriers, and it taxed all the ingenuity of a boy of
seventeen to work out this problem to the satisfaction of all
concerned, including my employers. But I thought the task no hardship,
and so far as I can remember I never had any disagreement of moment
with any of these transportation interests. This experience in
conducting all sorts of transactions at such an impressionable age,
with the helping hand of my superiors to fall back upon in an
emergency--was highly interesting to me. It was my first step in
learning the principle of negotiation, of which I hope to speak later.

The training that comes from working for some one else, to whom we
feel a responsibility, I am sure was of great value to me.

I should estimate that the salaries of that time were far less than
half of what is paid for equivalent positions to-day. The next year I
was offered a salary of $700, but thought I was worth $800. We had not