“There is one respect in which a live business man isn’t like a tree.”

“What is that?”

“If he remains rooted to the spot, he can’t branch out.”

During a campaign preceding the election of a Missouri Congressman it was suggested that, since he posed as a good business man, he might be willing to tell just what a good business man is.

“That’s easy,” he explained.  “A good business man is one who can buy goods from a Scotchman and sell them to a Jew—­at a profit!”

EDITH—­“Dick, dear, your office is in State street, isn’t it?”

DICKEY—­“Yes; why?”

EDITH—­“That’s what I told papa.  He made such a funny mistake about you yesterday.  He said he’d been looking you up in Bradstreet.”

FIRST MERCHANT (as reported in the New York “Trade Record")—­“How’s business?”

SECOND MERCHANT—­“Picking up a little.  One of our men got a $5,000 order yesterday.”

“Go away.  I don’t believe that.”

“Honest he did—­I’ll show you the cancellation.”

BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

The story of the rival boot-makers, which appeared recently, is matched by a correspondent of an English paper with another story, equally old but equally worth repeating.  It concerns two rival sausage-makers.  Again, they lived on opposite sides of a certain street, and, one day, one of them placed over his shop the legend: 

“We sell sausages to the gentry and nobility of the country.”

The next day, over the way, appeared the sign: 

“We sell sausages to the gentry and nobility of the whole country.”

Not to be outdone, the rival put up what he evidently regarded as a final statement, namely: 

“We sell sausages to the King.”

Next day there appeared over the door of the first sausage-maker the simple expression of loyalty: 

“God save the King.”

“Biddy,” remarked the newly wed Irishman, “go down and feed the pigs.”

“Faith and I will not,” replied the bride.

“Don’t be after contradicting me, Biddy,” retorted the husband.  “Haven’t I just endowed you with all my worldly goods, and if you can not feed your own property, then it’s ashamed of you I am.”

This was a new point of view, so off Biddy went.

Presently she returned.

“Have you fed the pigs, Biddy?” demanded her husband, sternly.

“Faith, and I have not,” she answered.  “I have done a great deal better.  As they were my property I have sold them, and shall not be bothered with them again.”

A business man advertised for an office boy.  The next morning there were some fifty boys in line.  He was about to begin examining the applicants when his stenographer handed him a card on which was scribbled: 

“Don’t do anything until you see me.  I’m the last kid in line, but I’m telling you I’m there with the goods.”