The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-11-04
A sTRICTLY HONEST MAN.
BY NJ. QUAD.


When Joseph Hike took over the
tailoring business followed by his
father for forty years with success.
there was not much ceremony about
it. The old man lay on his dying bed,
and he called his son to him and said:
You will carry on the business as
my heir and successor. All have to
say to you is to be honest. Honesty
Will always win out in the end
Joseph hadn't much to say in reply,
but then and there he resolved to pro-
fit by his fathers admonition and let
nothing lead him In forbidden paths.
Two weeks later the tailor shop was
his own and he had a new sign out.
his sign said that he was a merchant
tailor. That was honest enough. Any
merchant who called there for a suit
would be treated In the handsomest
manner. None had ever called during
the old mans lifeg but things are con-
stantly changing. Most of the tailor
ing business consisted in buying Sec
ond-hand clothes and dyeing and re-
pairing them for sale again, but the
profit was never over two hundred per
cent, and that is very little for an hon
est man these days.
There were times during his first
three months in business for himself
when Joseph could have put out signs
that he had reduced all his SIS over
coats to $3.50 and deceived the public,
but he was no such man. He had 81
suits which would have gone like hot
cakes at $40 if properly advertised;
but the watchword of Honesty" was
always ringing in the young mans
ears.
One day a stranger entered the place
to dispose of a fine overcOat. Had he
said that he had stolen it from a pub
lie reading room half an hour before
he could have made no sale of it. What
he said was that he was hard up and
wanted to get out of town, and Mr..
T~.era Ii AT-..
value of the garment to help him
along. His father had helped many a
man in that way, and he proposed to
follow in the same path. His offer
was accepted and the garment left. It
needed a bit of repairing and Joseph
sat down to the work with his own
needle. While doing his work he dis
covered a package concealed in the linz
ing. and on investigating he hauled
forth ten new 500 bills.
That seemed d lucky find for Mr..
Hike. 1t looked like bread on the
waters. He had been honest. and here
was his reward 1t was not all the
reward he expected before he got
through business, but it would do for
a starter. His first thought, as would
have been the case of any young man,
was to walk out and take a flyer on
the races, and end the day with a
champagne dinner. He had even put
on his coat to do so when he paused
and said to himself:
mo, I can not do it. This money
is not mine Very likely the man who
sold the coat was simply testing my
honesty If he did not know the money
was there some one else did, and it
would be like stealing to take it. Il
win lay it aside and seek to find the
owner
Mr.. Hike advertised in a daily paper
that he had found a certain sum of
money which the owner could have by
proving property, and SO forth, and
=, ,-Ie Ia sole
also wrote out a sign and hung it up
in his shop No one appeared to claim
the money. though on several Occa-
sions during the next thirty days Mr..
Hike took a quick skip for the back
room under the impression that a call
er was the man who sold him the
coat.
He need not have been alarmed. The
seller of the coat had been sent to
prison for year for felonious assault.
and was therefore safely out Of the
wav
AS to any other owners of the coat.
they did not seem to have learned of
their loss, though the weather was I'M
usually cold that winter. True, a
! detective came moseying around the
| shop and described q stolen coat and
asked Mr.. Hike if it had been offered
/ for sale.
''sir, I am an honest man. was the
reply.
but the coat might have been Of
| fered here"
ct might have been, and, now
think of it, I believe it was. I think
/ a red-headed man who wanted to raise
( IS to help bury his mother offered the
/ coat
and you bought ito"
! Bought a stolen Overcoat? How
little you know Joseph Hike, merchant
| tailor and honest man! I, of course,
/ questioned him sharply. and his sus-
picious answers caused me to threaten
/ his arrest"
''Umi" said the detective. as he
/ sauntered out.
When the lawyer who bought his
clothes at the tailor shop and got a
slight discount for legal advice as
needed told Joseph that he had com
piled with the law, and that the money
| was now his, there was no sudden ebu-
lition of spirits. Mr.. Hike had been
thinking things over and had planned
Just no VITO use the money. There were
to be three or four sales of goods in
! his line at a certain date. and when
that date arrived he divided his money