Of course, I don’t mean by this that I want you to be one of those fellows who swell out like a ready-made shirt and brag that they “never borrow and never lend.”  They always think that this shows that they are sound, conservative business men, but, as a matter of fact, it simply stamps them as mighty mean little cusses.  It’s very superior, I know, to say that you never borrow, but most men have to at one time or another, and then they find that the never-borrow-never-lend platform is a mighty inconvenient one to be standing on.  Be just in business and generous out of it.  A fellow’s generosity needs a heap of exercise to keep it in good condition, and the hand that writes out checks gets cramped easier than the hand that takes them in.  You want to keep them both limber.

While I don’t believe in giving with a string tied to every dollar, or doing up a gift in so many conditions that the present is lost in the wrappings, it’s a good idea not to let most people feel that money can be had for the asking.  If you do, they’re apt to go into the asking business for a living.  But these millionaires who give away a hundred thousand or so, with the understanding that the other fellow will raise another hundred thousand or so, always remind me of a lot of boys coaxing a dog into their yard with a hunk of meat, so that they can tie a tin can to his tail—­the pup edges up licking his chops at the thought of the provisions and hanging his tail at the thought of the hardware.  If he gets the meat, he’s got to run himself to death to get rid of the can.

While we’re on this subject of favors I want to impress on you the importance of deciding promptly.  The man who can make up his mind quick, makes up other people’s minds for them.  Decision is a sharp knife that cuts clear and straight and lays bare the fat and the lean; indecision, a dull one that hacks and tears and leaves ragged edges behind it.  Say yes or no—­seldom perhaps.  Some people have such fertile imaginations that they will take a grain of hope and grow a large definite promise with bark on it overnight, and later, when you come to pull that out of their brains by the roots, it hurts, and they holler.

When a fellow asks for a job in your department there may be reasons why you hate to give him a clear-cut refusal, but tell him frankly that you see no possibility of placing him, and while he may not like the taste of the medicine, he swallows it and it’s down and forgotten.  But you say to him that you’re very sorry your department is full just now, but that you think a place will come along later and that he shall have the first call on it, and he goes away with his teeth in a job.  You’ve simply postponed your trouble for a few weeks or months.  And trouble postponed always has to be met with accrued interest.

Never string a man along in business.  It isn’t honest and it isn’t good policy.  Either’s a good reason, but taken together they head the list of good reasons.