Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1885 — Could Fill the Bill. [ARTICLE]

Could Fill the Bill.

“I need exercise,” said one Clark street business man to another, the other day; “I know I do.” “Not the least doubt of it, Marshal,” replied the other. “I’ve thought the same thing for some time. Your close application to business is beginning to tell on you.” “I know it, Murphy; I’ve felt fora good while that I was neglecting my health. ” “Well, why don’t you take a rest and recuperate ?” “That’s not so much it, Murphy. Rest won’t do me a particle of good unless I can forget business. It don’t do ine any good to go away from town. I can’t leave business behind, and it I rides me like a nightmare all the time.” “That won’t do, Marshal; neyer do in the world. Keep it up a while longer, and under the sod you go. You must stop it; it’s all nonsense anyhow.” “I know it is, but I can’t help it.” “Yes, you can.” “Indeed I can not. I’ve been trying for some time to free my mind from this confounded slavery to traffic, and I’ve mads no headway at all—not the least bit. “That’s because you don’t go about it right. ” “Well, perhaps it is; but what’s your plan? I’m always willing to learn.” “You must go about the matter systematically, the same as you would in any business enterprise. Make up your mind in the first place that things have got to be just as you want them, and you’ll find the battle as good as half won, to start on. ” “And then what?” “In the next place, you must take sufficient exercise to* keep your blood moving, and it must be something that will not permit you to think of anything else while engaged in it. That’s the whole secret of the matter.” “But, my good fellow, that’s the impossible part of your plan. ” “Not a bit of it, Marshal. You’ll find it easy enough if you go about it right.” - —— “No, indeed, Murphy, you don’t know me. My mind is always on the go, like a streak of lightning—everywhere in a minute—and I’ve never been able to find any exercise that would make me forget everything else.” “You haven’t?” “No.” “Have you tried learning to ride a bicycle ?” “Well—that is—no; but I guess I’ve tried about everything else.” “You have?” ' “Yes.” “I suppose you’ve tried juggling with butcher knives?” “Well—no.” “Ever help your wife put down a carpet?” “No; always hired that done.” “Then you’ve fooled away a good many fine opportunities, that’s all. I don’t suppose you’ve ever tried to break a colt to go in single harness ?” “No; never had much to do with horses. ” “You’re not subject to the toothache?” “No.” “That’s a great pity, for it might be some help to you. If you wasn’t married I’d' say, fall in love; that would take all other trouble out of your mind with a rush. Ever tried walking on the prairie when the mercury was in the basement and the wind blowing like a drummer in a caboose ?” “No.” “I suppose you’ve tried dressing a three-year-old boy in a hurry, to make a train before daylight?” *“No.” “I thought you’d tried everything, but instead of that you’ve tried scarcely anything. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear that you haven’t even tried to hold a calf while somebody else was driving the cow into another lot ” “No, I never did that.” “Well, try a few experiments with some of these things, and I’m inclined to think you can manage to get your mind as far from business for a season as the necessity of the case seems to require. But if none of them happen to fill the bill to the very last jrequirement, you can overdo the matter like sixty by putting on a pair of roller skates, and practicing on a glide waltz, and such other kickups as you may fancy. If you can think of business with them Things on your feet, you’ve got a head big enough to wear an editor’s hat.—Chicago Ledger.