one knows "for sure." Everybody wants to see if you know anything about
it. Can you not see how much luckier you would have been had you really
known nothing of the state of things? A word, a look, from you, may turn
from your employer just the helping hand that would have carried him
across a tight place. How many battles have been won by the arrival,
just in time, of a reinforcement! Make it a point that, if you are
inclined


TO "BLOW YOUR AFFAIRS,"

you were not cut out for "business." You had better become a lecturer,
a farmer, or something else, and occupy a field where industry alone
will save all your interests. Remember the miserable barber of King
Midas in mythology. The King had been cursed by the offended god Apollo
with asses' ears. To hide his deformity he had his barber dress the hair
over the ears, and the barber was then sworn with an awful oath of
secrecy. But the "tonsorial artist" (as they call him in the city!) was
one of those people who could not stand the pressure. He went out in the
field and dug a little hole, and


INTO THIS HOLE HE BREATHED THE SECRET

that His Majesty had been smitten by Apollo. What was the astonishment
of the world at hearing the reeds that grew hard by whispering among
themselves, whenever the wind blew them confidentially together, "King
Midas hath asses' ears!"

Be in mortal fear of the first error in this regard. When a boy has made