, 1888-11-23
WITS GO WOOL GATHERING.
Absent Mindedness of Business Men When
They Lunch Down Town.


Absent hindedness of Business Men When
They Lunch Down Town.
do you know that many business men
are half crazy when they enter a restau-
rant at noon for lunch or dinner9" This
was said to a reporter by the owner of a
we'll known restaurant, who continued:
Their minds are not upon what they are
doing; their brains are busy as can be
figuring and planning. Their bodies left
their counting rooms, but their heads re-
manned. They, as a rule, eat hurriedly,
and any number of them do so mechan-
ically. l have seen them do the most alb
surd things possible. Often it happens
that one will throw down one cent at the
cashiers desk with a seventy-fve cent
or fifty cent check, and wait for a minute
or two for the change. And these are
sharp, shrewd, calculating business men,
who, if you entered their places of bust
ness, you would find alert enough, and
who would never make a mistake in Civ
ing out or receiving money.
They show their mental abstraction
in various ways. One will come in, and
with deliberation place his hat beneath
his chair, yet when he has done eating he
will rush to the rack, and, seizing some
body else's hat, go out, probably not dis
covering his error for a day or two. 1t is
" POSlbANO ldIb llAG uOG IOuR ago u uldl
with a u head wore out of my place a
Ct hat, which yould scarcely stay on the
top of his head. Nor did he discover his
mistake until he reached his office.
Zone day a man stepped up to my desk
and complained that he had lost his hat, a
very fine one which had cost him 81 or So.
His hat had been stolen, he charged, and
he was excited and angry. Would you
believe it? 1t was he who had stolen one.
l discovered a few minutes later that two
days before he had taken the hat of an
other, leaving his own. The one he took
was of the same material, but had been
worn an entire season, being greasy and
soiled; still, he wore it without discover
ing the fact until the time he made the
complaint, although his own hat was o
fine, brand new one.
ut is truly odd how men will behave
about hats. Frequently one will come
holding one in his hand and tell me he did
not wear that when he came in. l look at
the faces of these, and if they have but
just been shaved, tell them they madethe
exchange at the BARRIERS and did not dis
cover their error until they came in here
n man made a great ado because, as he
said, some one had carried off his hat,
when investigation showed that he had
worn another mans hat to the restaurant,
picking it up as he left the office, but not
detecting 1t until he had eaten. Going
out to eat at noon is not an interval of
rest to most business men, because there
is nc rest. They must supply the wants
of their inner man, but they do it without
any rest of the brain. Their occupation
is before them all the while, as their far
away looks show. They say and do things
in the most mechanical manner, and will
skip from twenty-four to forty-eight hours
in their computations. A level headed
man of business insisted up and down,
while holding his own hat in his hsnd-a
nice silk one-that it did not belong to
him. He knew what he had worn down
towp-it was a white one, he declared.
He probably had done SO the day before,
but would not be convinced of his error
until the name on the inside of the inner
band revealed it to him. A man picks up
a heap of human nature in our business,
because all sorts of things occur, particu-
larly at the noon rush, when men do some
of the most absurd things in the world,
and are often most unreasonable because
Of their self absorption. Chicago Herald