Borrow Where They Ought to Buy

1895

The proprietor of a hardware store has found it necessary to display conspicuously over his counter the following sign: "Our business is to sell tools, not to loan them."

"Did you actually find it necessary to hang up that notice?" I asked him.

"Of course I did," he replied. "Hardly a day passes that I don't have somebody running in here and asking me to lend him a hammer, a saw or a chisel. It's one of the freaks of human nature, and I can't account for it. Persons who would not think of going into a hatshop to borrow a hat or to a furnishing store to borrow a shirt seem to think it's the most natural thing in the world to come in here and ask me to lend them a hammer." — New York Herald.