Lottery. It contained a draft on New York, signed by the treasurer of the State of Louisiana, for two hundred thousand dollars. The schoolmaster had won the Grand Prize.
The above story, I am afraid, is a little gloomy. I put it down merely for the moral it contained, and I became so absorbed in telling it that I almost forgot what the moral was that it was meant to convey. But I think the idea is that if the schoolmaster had long before abandoned the study of medicine, for which he was not fitted, and gone in, let us say, for playing the banjo, he might have become end-man in a minstrel show. Yes, that was it.
Let me pass on to other elements in success.
I suppose that anybody will admit that the peculiar quality that is called initiative—the ability to act promptly on one’s own judgment—is a factor of the highest importance.
I have seen this illustrated two or three times in a very striking fashion.
I knew, in Toronto—it is long years ago—a singularly bright young man whose name was Robinson. He had had some training in the iron and steel business, and when I knew him was on the look out for an opening.
I met him one day in a great hurry, with a valise in his hand.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
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