STREET DOGS

IWANT you to learn right at the outset not to play with the spoon before you take the medicine. Putting off an easy thing makes it hard, and putting off a hard one makes it impossible.

Old Dick Stover … was the worst hand at procrastinating that I ever saw. Dick was a powerful hearty eater, and no one ever loved mealtime better, but he used to keep turning over in bed mornings for just another wink and staving off getting up, until finally his wife combined breakfast and dinner on him, and he only got two meals a day. He was a mighty religious man, too, but he got to putting off saying his prayers until after he was in bed, and then he would keep passing them along until his mind was clear of worldly things, and in the end he would drop off to sleep without saying them at all.

What between missing the Sunday morning service and never being seen on his knees, the first thing Dick knew he was turned out of the church. He had a pretty good business when I first went with him, but he would keep putting off firing his bad clerks until they had lit out with the petty cash; and he would keep putting off raising the salaries of his good ones until his competitor had hired them away.

He got so he wouldn’t discount his bills, even when he had the money; and when they came due he would give notes so as to keep from paying out his cash a little longer. Running a business on those lines is, of course, equivalent to making a will in favour of the sheriff and committing suicide so he can inherit.

I simply mention Dick in passing as an instance of how habits rule a man’s life. The last I heard of Dick he was 93 years old and just about to die ... but I’ll bet he’s living yet. — George Horace Lorimer, from Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son

Michel Pireu — e-mail: pireum@bdfm.co.za