But why should we, here in the West, take readily to all other
institutions common to the cultured East and ignore the forefather
industry? I now make this public announcement, and will stick to it, viz:
I will be one of ten full-blooded American citizens to establish a branch
forefather's lodge in the West, with a separate fund set aside for the
benefit of forefathers who are no longer young. Forefathers are just as
apt to become old and helpless as anyone else. Young men who contemplate
becoming forefathers should remember this.
In Acknowledgement.
To The Metropolitan Guide Publishing Co., New York.
Gentlemen.--I received the copy of your justly celebrated “Guide to rapid
Affluence, or How to Acquire Wealth Without Mental Exertion,” price
twenty-five cents. It is a great boon.
I have now had this book sixteen weeks, and, as I am wealthy enough, I
return it. It is not much worn, and if you will allow me fifteen cents for
it, I would be very grateful. It is not the intrinsic value of the fifteen
cents that I care for so much, but I would like it as a curiosity.
The book is wonderfully graphic and thorough in all its details, and I was
especially pleased with its careful and useful recipe for ointments. One
style of ointment spoken of and recommended by your valuable book, is
worthy of a place in history. I made some of it according to your formula.
I tried it on a friend of mine. He wore it when he went away, and he has
not as yet returned. I heard, incidentally, that it adhered to him. People
who have examined it say that it retains its position on his person
similar to a birthmark.
Your cement does not have the same peculiarity. It does everything but
adhere. Among other specialties it effects a singular odor. It has a
fragrance that ought to be utilized in some way. Men have harnessed the
lightning, and it seems to me that the day is not far distant when a man
will be raised up who can control this latent power. Do you not think that
possibly you have made a mistake and got your ointment and cement formula
mixed? Your cement certainly smells like a corrupt administration in a
warm room.
Your revelations in the liquor manufacture, and how to make any mixed
drink with one hand tied, is well worth the price of the book. The chapter
on bar etiquette is also excellent. Very few men know how to properly
enter a bar-room and what to do after they arrive. How to get into a
bar-room without attracting attention, and how to get out without police
interference, are points upon which our American drunkards are lamentably
ignorant. How to properly address a bar tender, is also a page that no
student of good breeding could well omit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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