A

N item in Impressions, a London publication, in reference to a "Where-Is-It Club?" recently attracted my attention. The name impressed me, for I felt that it aptly designated about the largest organization I have ever heard of. Its membership must include a very large percentage of the human race, for in practically every home and every business concern in the civilized world there are charter members of the universal "Where-Is-It Club." We see these people everywhere, men and women who are always hunting for things, never knowing where they are. They have no order or system in their make-up, and no sense of their value in making life harmonious. They never seem to have heard of the maxim:. "A place for everything, everything in its place." They never put anything where it belongs, but drop it wherever they happen to be. Then when they need things in a great hurry,

and

Ruskin says that order and system are nobler things than power. Order and system are not only nobler things than power but they are also producers of power. They multiply one's power of achievement a hundredfold. They economize time and energy; they facilitate and simplify your work, make it infinitely pleasanter and easier of accomplishment, and they shorten the way to

they must waste a lot of valuable time looking for them, turning over the contents of boxes, bureau drawers or desk drawers, hunting through papers and letters, and misplacing a lot of other things which they will have to search for later.

THE NEW SUCCESS cartoonist gives us a good illustration of the typical systemless business man. He looks as if he might be eligible for president of the "Where-Is-It Club?" Half crazy hunting for some particular document on a desk which looks as if a cyclone had struck it,

success.

The Bradstreet and Dun agencies state that a large percentage of failures are due to lack of system and order. Thousands of unsystematic proprietors of small business houses go through life complaining of their hard luck and the fates that keep them down, without ever realizing that their confused, slipshod methods are re

sponsible for all their troubles. They lay their non-success to bad location, too many competitors, or some other thing, when competent men all about them know that it is due solely to their indifferent management and lack of system. Many a man is wondering right now why he does not succeed, while the very desk at which he sits tells the reason why. The unfiled documents, the disorderly drawers, the layers of newspapers and pamphlets, unanswered letters, empty envelopes, memorandum slips-all are telltales against him.

W

E are all surrounded by telltales which, whether we are conscious of it or not, are constantly proclaiming the story of our lives. telling all who have eyes to see, whether we are efficient, systematic, orderly, painstaking, reliable or the reverse. If I were about to hire a clerk, I would ask no other recommendation than would be afforded by the condition of his desk, or table, or room, or work-bench, or counter or books. This would tell me more concerning his real character and his value as an employee than anything else.

A business man who had been watching a young fellow for some time, and seriously considering employing him for an important position, called on him one day at his place of busi

qualities necessary for any position calling for large executive ability-system, order, method, efficiency in disposing of a large volume of business quickly and effectively.

Watch your desk! Its condition will help you or will hinder you. It will not only influence others in their judgment of you, but it will react strongly on yourself. Confused surroundings make a confused, muddled mind, and a muddled mind cannot think clearly or work efficiently. Clear your desk of everything you don't need for immediate use; make it ready for the day's work just as the decks of a battleship are cleared and made ready for action in a coming battle, and you will be surprised to find how much more effectively you can work, how much more you can accomplish. On the other hand, there is an insidious suggestion of confusion, of helplessness, in a cluttered desk. It destroys the feeling of joy and enthusiasm, the sense of satisfaction with which one sits down to work at a desk cleared and ready for action.

Have you ever been in a large commercial office and seen a great array of desks, all occupied by busy men? And have you noticed the characteristic difference in the desks? There are desks and desks; some cleared, ready for the next task, and others ready to bury it. An efficiency expert going through such a place could give a pretty accurate analysis of each man's character by a glance at his desk, for like man like desk; like desk like business. Without looking at the men he could tell which ones were members of the "Where-Is-It Club," and which were not.

W

HAT!" pealed Theron Wade, while he viewed with alarm the olive visage of Tony Camapella. "Two cents more? Why, you raised the price three cents two months ago!"

Many men would not have remembered just when the former catapulting occurred. However, Theron could have told you, to the day. It was set down in the thin little expense book which reposed in a vest pocket. The vest was not more than three years old. There are vests no younger, as well as coats and, perhaps, trousers, that are worn in these days of costs saving to beat the high tariff for living, which look almost as good as new. But the owners paid more for their suits than had Wade. Veritably, from hat to shoes he was shiny.

Frowsy Sicilian Tony elevated shoulders toward. the lobes of ears which had once worn rings. "They-a raised da price on me," he gabbled. "Once-now again. I maka three cents, I show you da bill. Me, I can no do beez-a-ness for nothin'! You buy it somewheres else, it costa you a nickel, a dime more.' Theron knew this was true. It would be a waste of time to look further in the hope of saving the two cents. Since he had come to Hailesborough, a year before, he had combed the town for the cheapest shops in which to buy his necessities. He knew that the odds and ends which comprised Tony's fruit-and-what-next stock could be always bought right. Camapella was cringingly satisfied with a smaller profit than any merchant Wade had ever seen. How could he support his wife and bambino!

So Wade reluctantly dug for the required thirty cents. "Five cents raise in two months,' he grumbled, "and a nickel six months before that. Used to cost twenty cents! Profiteering!" Tony's unhappy gesture indicated that he did not know. He did not know much anyway.

In these days of soaring prices he remained overly humble, not daring to ask a reasonable profit. So, while his patrons saved money, he did not.

He wrapped about the round box a fragment of expensive glazed paper and snapped over it a couple of rubber bands. Thus, he further reduced his meagre profit on the sale. As for Wade, he would use the paper for shaving and the bands would come in handy. He always figured that way. Even the twine which came around parcels was preserved, wound in a compact ball.

Theron took out his expense book and jotted down, with the date, the item, "One box Blackola, 30 cents. (Two cents advance.)" Then he continued his walk to the office, while he mentally computed that he would more than get around the advance by shining his shoes twice a week instead of three times, which had been his custom. For the rest of the time, to rub them over with the cloth every morning would do as well.

TH

HERE were ways to balk these accursed profiteers! Oh, yes, there were ways! Two shines weekly, rather than three, was a lucky hunch. After all, the new box of polish would last him longer than the last one had done.

There was beauty on Commonwealth Street, down which he was walking; beauty in the elms among which soft breezes were whispering; beauty in sunlight which irradiated the dingy shops; beauty in the faces of young women walking briskly to work in stores or offices. However, Wade saw none of the beauty. His look was downcast, his thin lips compressed and his hawklike profile tensed as he hastened, absorbed in mental computations.

He was not alone in this exercise, of course. Plenty of men and women in the passing throng were similarly engaged. The times demanded

it. It was fair to assume that most of them were concerned with the ascending cost of living, and that they reckoned with responsibilities toward others.

Herein lay the difference between Theron Wade and the great majority. He had no encumbrances; he had only himself to look out for. His computations concerned the cost of living, but only as it related to his bank balance. That was growing by an average of twenty dollars a week, saved from his salary of forty; he was determined that it should be no less as the weeks sped on. Those savings; he must guard them! Not for the relief of some fellow being, though he had relatives who needed some such practical attention. Just for their own sweet sake, he jealously schemed for the weekly additions that were swelling the thousand or two which, at twentyseven, he had managed to amass. The amount must not be cut down by the rising scale of living.

But how hard the profiteering hounds were making it for a poor dog, to be sure! This was the reflection that lined his brow with pain as he turned into Exchange Street. The landlady had just advanced the weekly rent of his mean little room, in Exeter Place, by a half dollar. She had volubly explained, while tucking back a wisp of drab hair which straggled discouraged upon her forehead, that she just had to do it, costs were coming up so. Theron listened gloomily. Her troubles were nothing to him; there gleamed in his mind only the round, cold, hard fact of the extra half dollar.

There was no use in thinking of moving. He had selected his boarding place for the same reason he had chosen the shop of Tony Camapella. Mrs. Dustin was "easy," as was Camapella. If she were advancing him a half dollar, it was certain that every other lodging housekeeper in the neighborhood-which was not an expensive one had "jumped" their lodgers anywhere from a dollar to two a week some time before timid Mrs. Dustin had dared to make the plunge. That room, once it had cost him three dollars, and now it was five-fifty! A lunch that in halcyon days had cost fifteen cents, now cost thirty or thirty-five! And laundry

there would have been that much more to cache with his savings in the Hailesborough Savings. Bank. Better late than never, though.

A faint grin tugged at his thin mouth, filled with teeth that required some overdue attention, only, dentists were profiteers, also. About this laundry business, now, every man could be to a reasonable extent his own mangler.

He

His underwear and socks, by all means. could slip into the bathroom at night, wash them, and hang them upon the hooks of his closet to dry. Yes, and his handkerchiefs and the soft collars. A soft collar looked mussed a little while after you buttoned it, anyhow. What was the matter with ironing them, while wet, with his fingers? They would dry, all right. Men had to pay altogether too much for a few strokes of a flatiron in these days. And on soft collars the laundries saved the price of the starch. Outrageous! But-no more.

Ambition surged within him. Why not do his pajamas, also? Nobody would know. That would leave only his shirts to be sent out, as a regular thing. Reluctantly, he admitted that he had best not tackle them. He had to meet the landlady's advance of fifty cents. Now he foresaw a weekly saving of sixty, seventy cents, even more. A little thought had solved the problem. He was still safely inside the costs limit he had set for himself.

There are men who make "killings" in the stock market. They feel no keener thrill than now warmed Theron Wade, approaching daily toil with his hunch on home-done laundry, as a dampener on the high cost of living!

TH

HE Marathon Sales System Company, of international success, was housed in its own red-brick building, in Exchange Street. Four floors hardly met its growing needs; its former structure in the West End, now yielded a handsome rental investment in office. More than ever, was the Marathon thriving since the war. Following chaos, business throughout the world was feeling the thrum of a faster tempo, was developing in breadth and vision.

Theron Wade ascended in an elevator to the fourth floor and entered the computations suite where he had a desk. Here, as throughout the building, showed rich tiled floors spread with rugs, burlapped walls, the dull glow of mahogany. The Marathon had never done things by halves. This "waste" of good money had always given Wade twinges of disapproval. The interior of the offices could have been made as presentable for half the money, he believed. Why expend so much upon quarters in which folk spent not to exceed eight hours a day?

He turned to the window, looking over the valley studded with chimneys of varied quarters, those of factory sections and of handsome residential districts. Grave, lofty, surrounding hills were beginning to show the deep emerald of spring. Filmy patches of clouds, like the handkerchiefs of a goddess, sailed in the blue sky. Rare beauty-but Wade was not thinking of that. As nearly always, his thought turned inward. It reached out only for money.

That forty a week which he drew; he reflected rebelliously that it should be more. A month longer than a year he had been with the Marathon; they had increased his weekly salary five dollars in the fall, a general advance through the office made in deference to the increasing cost of living.

more.

passed, Wade stood scowling reflectively. To protect his ratio of savings, and perhaps to increase it, he had to have more money.

The office should pay him But he knew there would be no use in asking for it unless the powers were considering another general advance. And this, he considered doubtful, so soon.

He heard a stir in the outer office; evidently old Pratt had arrived. A tapping of light footsteps told, too, that Hannah Thomas, the stenographer, had come in. Then, as the silvery chime of the clock in Pratt's room began the toll of nine, a swinging tread approached his door.

Lambert Brill, his desk mate, entered the room. "Hello, Wadie," he called, as he tossed his hat on a hook in the wardrobe, and flung himself in the chair opposite Theron's at the long, flat mahogany desk. "Everything seems more'n rosy to-day!" he remarked.