The concerns which fail are those which have scattered their capital, which means that they have scattered their brains also. They have investments in this, or that, or the other, here, there and everywhere. “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” is all wrong. I tell you “Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.” Look round you and take notice; men who do that do not often fail. It is easy to watch and carry the one basket. It is trying to carry too many baskets that breaks most eggs in this country. He who carries three baskets must put one on his head, which is apt to tumble and trip him up. One fault of the American business man is lack of concentration. To summarize what I have said: Aim for the highest; never enter a barroom; do not touch liquor, or if at all, only at meals; never speculate; never indorse beyond your surplus cash fund; make the firm’s interests yours; break orders always to save owners; concentrate; put all your eggs in one basket and watch that basket. OF INTEREST TO WAITERS. Said the man about town as he pushed a coin across the table and poked several bank notes into his vest pocket: “Have you ever seen a waiter who stands in with the cashier in a fashionable hotel, cafe or rathskeller dress up his change as you’d dress a window, so that you’re tempted to tip him? No matter what denomination you pay in, between them they’ll always make one bill look as if it had been broken up with dynamite. If your check calls for half a dollar you never get half a dollar back from a dollar. There’ll be a quarter and two 10-cent pieces and a nickel. If you’re generous you won’t pick up the quarter; if you’re kind of stingy you’ll leave a dime, and you’ll pass over the nickel anyway, even if you’re tighter than a tight shoe.” “Let me ask you a harder one,” replied the man addressed. “Have you ever seen a waiter who didn’t stand in with the cashier in a fashionable hotel, cafe or rathskeller?” WITH OUR THINKERS “I believe that any man’s life will be filled with constant unexpected encouragements if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day of his life—that is, tries to make each day reach as nearly as possible the high-water mark of pure, unselfish useful living.”—Booker T. Washington. * * * * * “The ability to live and thrive under adverse circumstances is the surest guarantee of the future. The race which at the last shall inherit the earth will be the race which remains longest upon it. The Negro was here before the Anglo-Saxon was evolved, and his thick lips and heavy-lidded eyes looked out from the inscrutable Sphynx cross the sands of Egypt while yet the ancestors of those who now oppress him were living in caves, practicing human sacrifices, and painting themselves with woad—and the Negro is here yet.”—Charles W. Chesnutt. * * * * *