In the first place a system of checking obtains throughout the house. In no department is anything surrendered to anyone without a proper order for it, and then the delivery is duly recorded for reference and auditing. When the kitchen sends to the storeroom for supplies a requisition, countersigned by the chef, must be shown before, and, in some hotels, a receipt after, the articles are handed over. When the chamber maid goes to the laundry for clean towels she must first hand over a corresponding number of soiled ones, and the head laundress must take account of the transaction in her book, with the maid's number and the time of the occurrence.

In the dining rooms, cafés, and such places, the system is still more thorough. Even an order for a glass of milk or a piece of toast sets in motion considerable intricate machinery and requires the attention of three or four persons other than those directly employed in filling the order itself.

The customer's written order does not go directly to the kitchen. It must first go to one of the checkers whose desk is on the waiter's route to and from the kitchen. Here it is treated in different ways in different hotels.

Unless the waiter has this order blank with the checker's stamp, he can not get what he wants in the kitchen, and even after he has filled the order, the checker must inspect it on the way to the dining room and check each item off on the order blank. When the meal is finished and this bill, with the separate items added up, has been presented to the guest for examination, payment is made to the cashier, whose desk is in a different place from the checker's, and who adds it all up again, receipts it, files the big part and gives the little part to the waiter with the change. This stub he pockets for reference along with as much of the change as the guest sees fit to give him.

At the end of twenty-four hours these three memoranda, along with the original order in the guest's handwriting, all come together again. This time it is in the auditing or comptroller's department, where they are compared for the purpose of disclosing possible discrepancies, and examined to bring out mistakes of overcharging or undercharging. These stubs and bills keep coming in all day long from various parts of the house. In some hotels twenty or more checkers and cashiers are employed in the dining room, cafés, and dumb-elevator service.

Naturally, the heads of different hotels have just as different ideas in regard to the best policy for success in their business as the heads of other enterprises have in regard to theirs, and the circumstances that condition those ideas are about as various also.

But there is one motive that inspires every kind of hotel so universally that it is a sort of axiom in the business. It is this: "It always pays to please the guest at any cost." Rather lose the profits of a dozen patrons than the good will of one of them!

Hotels provide all sorts of things to make patrons contented. And the managers take all sorts of means to find out how their efforts are succeeding.

This is another point. enough as far as it goes, There are, as the hotel

And they must attract them. Simply pleasing them is all well but it does not go far enough. man well knows, a score of other large hotels not far off with many floors full of many rooms which other hardworking hotel men are striving to keep full, and he has to do something more than merely give satisfaction to get success in modern hotel competition.

So they try not only to satisfy all wants, but they create other wants to satisfy. They spend large amounts of money to introduce an intricate and unnecessary telephone

system throughout the house, or they secure some famous oil painting to hang up in the drawing-room, or spend a great deal of money and ingenuity on some other means of drawing attention to the hotel and make it talked about. It might be said that another axiom is "Every dollar spent in such a way that it will show is money well invested."

BY WILLIAM CHESEBROUGH

N the real-estate field there are many kinds of work and workers. A glance at the workers will show that the majority of the realty leaders are young men or men not much beyond the prime of life. The number of such men will undoubtedly be greatly increased in the near future, for the realty market is particularly in need of them, and the future it holds in store appears bright.

The youth who enters the real-estate market in hope of reaching a top notch should be no weakling, or yet wanting in a fair education. He must have a resolute will, an energetic disposition, and a fair memory for dates and figures. He should also be a close observer of human nature, be courteous in manners and appearance, and, furthermore, should be able to cultivate a cheerful way of taking up and mastering the details of the realty market. For that young man success is almost assured, and, even if he should fail to attain his ambition, he will be free from the remorse of spirit which follows a fainthearted effort crowned with a bitter disappointment. It may be said that the picture here drawn is that of the perfect young man; but that is the kind to whom will be offered in the realty market the choicest places and the most important work in the near future, and in the coming generation of business men.

Physical stamina is an important requisite to success

1 From "Careers for the Coming Men." Copyright, 1904, by the Saalfield Publishing Company.

in the realty field for many reasons. Simply to keep run of the market is a tax on a man's strength. Seldom does a day pass without a fair number of transactions being reported. Among these will be auction and private sales, building loans, plans for buildings or alterations. Then the transfers of titles, mortgages, lawsuits, and mechanics' liens recorded demand attention. Taken together, they should, in a certain sense, reflect the present and probable future condition of the market.

Every well-regulated office has books in which such transactions are recorded for future reference, and the chief value of these books depends upon their accuracy. If the transactions of any day be read in a careless manner the indifference shown by the reader to his business interests may not only cost him many hours of unnecessary labor later but also pecuniary loss. No man, unless gifted with a marvelous memory, can be expected to remember the lesser sales or transactions of a previous year, but he should be fairly well posted on the greater sales of the past, which have, or are likely to have, bearing on the present or immediate future.

By close attention to the records of every day the observer will have a general idea of values, and by forming comparative tables of previous and present prices he will learn whether land in certain sections has grown cheaper or dearer. From this knowledge he may be able to find for himself the causes which have wrought the changes. There are some men who make specialties of particular districts, as brokers, operators, investors; but, while thus placing limitations to their business sphere, they can not (without running great risks) overlook what is taking place around them.

A man may become a specialist in the market and limit his field of operations. The specialist, however, is bound