A RANCHMAN'S RECOLLECTIONS 



fascinated me. They were basically sound and con- 

 sistently followed. Once when I happened to be in 

 Denver I dropped in on the manager of the Denver 

 Swift branch house. He was an old Kansas City 

 friend. In the course of our chat I asked if "G. F." 

 had been around lately. (Packinghouse men almost 

 invariably refer to the "higher-ups" by their initials 

 only.) "I should say he had," replied my friend; 

 "he caught me napping, and he sure landed on me. 

 The bookkeeper went to lunch. I happened to think 

 of something in the railroad office about half a block 

 away, and wasn't gone over fifteen minutes ; but when 

 I came back I found 'G. F.' sitting at the desk, 

 counting the number of pencils we had in use at the 

 same time. He said: 'This must be a safe com- 

 munity if you can all go to lunch at once and leave 

 the doors open.' Then, looking out at the wagons, 

 which were all in by that hour, and lined for loading 

 in the morning, he said: 'Is that just your idea of 

 how Swift & Co. wagons should look?' I said, 'No, 

 Mr. Swift; they need retouching, and I wrote Chi- 

 cago last week for permission to have them painted.' 

 Then I got my knock-out. He turned to me, and, 

 with a little smile,, said, 'Did you ask them If you 

 could have them washed?' " 



After all it is the little thing which makes the 

 big ones, and I took the story back to the hotel that 

 night, giving myself a good mental survey, and found 

 that I had asked to have several wagons painted, but 



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