“Honest application is the stimulus of all effort. That, to me, is the science of achievement. Whenever you find an opportunity to do something that will benefit you, do not fail to take advantage of it. Often, the most trying periods will produce the best results. For instance, fifteen years ago, while sailing down the African coast in a steamer which carried, as the bulk of its cargo, my teas, we encountered a terrific storm. The steamer had to be lightened. At one time it even looked as if we were going to be wrecked; but, really, I thought more of the loss of that tea than of anything else. I had it brought on deck, with the idea of using it for advertising purposes, if for nothing else. On each case I had painted, in large black letters, ‘Lipton’s Tea,’ and then cast it overboard, dreaming that it would float to the African coast, and be picked up by someone who had not heard of the product before. Sure enough, it was.” HE OWNS NEARLY FIVE HUNDRED STORES. “Your business must be an enormous one now, Sir Thomas, from the stories in the English papers about the organization of your enterprises into a limited company.” “Yes, I have a good deal to attend to,” he said, smiling. “I have sixty stores in London alone, and four hundred and twenty the world over, most of them being in the British Isles. I sell all food products except beef, which I have never handled. I own thousands of acres on the island of Ceylon, where I am the largest individual land-owner. On this land I grow tea, coffee and cocoa, and employ several thousand natives to cultivate and ship it. I have warehouses all over Asia, and branch stores in Hamburg and Berlin. In Chicago I have a packing-house where I sometimes kill three thousand hogs in a day. So, you see, my enterprises are pretty well scattered over the earth. “How many employees have I? Well, all in all, I have somewhat over ten thousand, and a nicer lot of employees you never saw. I have never had a strike, and never expect to have one, for I make it my personal duty to see that my men are all comfortably fixed. We live together in perfect harmony.” “And what advice would you give young men who are about to start out for themselves, Sir Thomas?”