Self Help

ing any article that appealed to my fancy, I asked, "Have you anything else?" I was simply forced to compel her to pay me some attention as a dentist forces a tooth. This girl did not know her stock, and did not care half as much about it as she did about the song. She was not there in the interest of jewelry, she was not doing what her hand found to do with all her might. She was not concentrated in her work. She was living in one world, while functioning in another. Another incident of like character. I went to a coat store and asked the saleswoman to show me a coat. She stood like a statue and asked, "What kind of a coat do you want?" I replied, "I do not know, I want you to show me some coats." To this she replied, "Well, if you will tell me what sort you want, what color?" In desperation I said, "I don't care. I want to see if you have anything I 47 want." She then walked around unconcerned and abstractedly and did not seem to know a thing about coats, yet she was selling coats, she should have known all about coats. I had had no choice, but just wanted to find something suitable for me in that store. What would a concentrated saleswoman have done? A life that was in power, a saleswoman who was doing with her might what her hands found to do? She would have said, "Here are some coats." And then she would have piled up coats of all descriptions before me and she would have made suggestions in regard to them and mentioned their attractive prices and would have tempted me to try on half a dozen of them. The girl in the coat store was only one of ten thousand of her kind who are walking the streets out of a job, and wondering why someone else has work and she has not. Finally I saw a coat on a rack and put it on myself and asked the saleswoman if the attached tag was the correct one, and being assured that it was I concluded to take this coat. Then I said to her, "I want to tell you something that you won't forget. You did not sell me this coat, I got it in spite of you. The man who employs you would have lost this sale as far as you are concerned, and if he had lost this sale to me he will lose twenty-five or thirty sales during the day because of you. And when on Saturday night he comes to you and says 'I have no use for you' you will shed bitter tears and ask what the matter is. You have not learned the first principles of keeping a position and nobody will then employ you. I am not a prophet, but I venture to say that you have been out of work