Great Merchants' Shabby Desks

as a rule the head of any large And j long-established concern has the ' biest desk in the room, says Chicago i Times-Herald. Business men have a kind of superstition on this point, at least many of them do. They feel like linging to the old desk, whlch has witnessed so many of their financial triumphs, ana are half inclined to belleve, perhaps, that it might break the spell if they should part with these old partners of their joys and sorrows. Henry Clews, in his "Twenty Years in Wall Street," remarks that Jay Gould transacted all his business at a desk "which never ought to have cost over $25," and everybody knows the story of A. T. Stewart, that when he removed from the old store in which he began his career to the new one which he built later on he insisted on taking along the old apple woman who had been carrying on her small mercantile transactions near his door for so many years and whom he grew to associate r.'ith his business success.