188 THE ITINERANT HORSE PHYSICIAN 



It is hard to make this plain in writing, but 

 here is the way to keep out of "cliques": 



1. Refrain from discussing personalities. 



2. If there are two barber shops in your town, 

 divide your patronage between them; a barber 

 can do more harm to you, if you are unpopular 

 with him, than any other man in town. 



3. If your office is on the north side of town, 

 let yourself be seen on the south side occasion- 

 ally ; if you hang too close on the north side, you 

 will soon get into a little circle of acquaintances 

 who will dominate your every move; in other 

 words, you will drift into a "clique." "Big city 

 fellows" can't see the point here, but "small town 

 men" will know what I mean. 



One reason for the existence of cliques in small 

 towns is the fact that nearly all small towns are 

 so full of competition in all lines of commercial 

 endeavor that business absolutely controls friend- 

 ship. You can theorize on this issue from now 

 until the day of judgment and I can knock all 

 your best arguments cold with wallops of actual 

 experience and observation in more than five 

 hundred small towns. 



Another lesson we learned is that the small 

 town is just as rotten in morals as Chicago or any 

 big city. I don't care where your small burg is 

 situated or how well you think you know your 

 town; you don't know much about anybody out- 

 side of the clique you belong to. You stand for 

 hours talking over personalities about those out- 

 side your clique, but you don't say much worth 

 while listening to. A live tramp can show you 

 the black spots in your burg, black spots that are 



