Literary Lapses | Page 8

at 10 p.m. You can't do it. I've
seen too many millionaires for that. If you want to be a millionaire you
mustn't get up till ten in the morning. They never do. They daren't. It
would be as much as their business is worth if they were seen on the
street at half-past nine.
And the old idea of abstemiousness is all wrong. To be a millionaire
you need champagne, lots of it and all the time. That and Scotch
whisky and soda: you have to sit up nearly all night and drink buckets
of it. This is what clears the brain for business next day. I've seen some
of these men with their brains so clear in the morning, that their faces
look positively boiled.
To live like this requires, of course, resolution. But you can buy that by
the pint.
Therefore, my dear young man, if you want to get moved on from your
present status in business, change your life. When your landlady brings
your bacon and eggs for breakfast, throw them out of window to the
dog and tell her to bring you some chilled asparagus and a pint of
Moselle. Then telephone to your employer that you'll be down about
eleven o'clock. You will get moved on. Yes, very quickly.
Just how the millionaires make the money is a difficult question. But
one way is this. Strike the town with five cents in your pocket. They
nearly all do this; they've told me again and again (men with millions
and millions) that the first time they struck town they had only five
cents. That seems to have given them their start. Of course, it's not easy
to do. I've tried it several times. I nearly did it once. I borrowed five
cents, carried it away out of town, and then turned and came back at the
town with an awful rush. If I hadn't struck a beer saloon in the suburbs
and spent the five cents I might have been rich to-day.
Another good plan is to start something. Something on a huge scale:
something nobody ever thought of. For instance, one man I know told
me that once he was down in Mexico without a cent (he'd lost his five

in striking Central America) and he noticed that they had no power
plants. So he started some and made a mint of money. Another man
that I know was once stranded in New York, absolutely without a
nickel. Well, it occurred to him that what was needed were buildings
ten stories higher than any that had been put up. So he built two and
sold them right away. Ever so many millionaires begin in some such
simple way as that.
There is, of course, a much easier way than any of these. I almost hate
to tell this, because I want to do it myself.
I learned of it just by chance one night at the club. There is one old man
there, extremely rich, with one of the best faces of the lot, just like a
hyena. I never used to know how he had got so rich. So one evening I
asked one of the millionaires how old Bloggs had made all his money.
"How he made it?" he answered with a sneer. "Why he made it by
taking it out of widows and orphans."
Widows and orphans! I thought, what an excellent idea. But who would
have suspected that they had it?
"And how," I asked pretty cautiously, "did he go at it to get it out of
them?"
"Why," the man answered, "he just ground them under his heels, that
was how."
Now isn't that simple? I've thought of that conversation often since and
I mean to try it. If I can get hold of them, I'll grind them quick enough.
But how to get them. Most of the widows I know look pretty solid for
that sort of thing, and as for orphans, it must take an awful lot of them.
Meantime I am waiting, and if I ever get a large bunch of orphans all
together, I'll stamp on them and see.
I find, too, on inquiry, that you can also grind it out of clergymen. They
say they grind nicely. But perhaps orphans are easier.

How to Live to be 200
Twenty years ago I knew a man called Jiggins, who had the Health
Habit.
He used to take a cold plunge every morning. He said it opened his
pores. After it he took a hot sponge. He said it closed the pores. He got
so that he could open and shut his pores at will.
Jiggins used to stand and breathe at an open window for half an hour
before dressing. He said it expanded his lungs.