PEN BORROWERS.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15908, 21 August 1923, Page 3

PEN BORROWERS.

according to safed the SAGE, j “There are two kinds of men who ; borrow fountain pens from their j neighbours,” writes ‘Safed the Sage in the Boston Congregationalist. “The wicked borrow, and return not again, but put the Pen in their own Pocket and go home with it; the righteous hand back the Pen after they have used it; but even they have some- j times to be reminded of it. Therefore j do I carry Two Fountain Pens, one | to use and one to lend. And I have one more reason, namely, that there is no one kind of Pen which answereth unto every need. For if a Pen be a Self-filler, then must much ,of the Barrell he occupied with the Works, and the easier the Pen be to Operate the -less Ink doth it hold. Wherefore must one Pen be carried that it may be swiftly filled, and another that it may carry Ink enough to last until the owner cometh back home again And this also have I noticed in filling a Pen, that he who would fill it too full increaseth not the capacity of the Pen to hold Ink, but gettetn Ink upon his fingers. And there was once a wise man who told me that a Fountain Pen slieddeth its Ink most freely when it is nearly empty, even as men talk most who have Least Wisdom. For men speak little of those things that lie deepest within their souls. Yea, I like it little when a man doth tell me on Short Acquaintance the whole story of His Domestic Relations. Neither do I like it when a man whom I have never seen cometh unto me to waste an Hour of my time, and desireth to begin the Interview with a Season Prayer. For I am suspicious of the man who thus approacheth me and who then pioduceth Mining Stock for Sale, or desireth me to invest my money in Oil Wells. I like not the free-flowing of his first dip, and I fear for the honesty of the man who talketh too freely of his soul or his Faith in the Power of Prayer as a preliminary to a Commercial Transaction. The Full Pen floweth not so freely, and the ■ soul that hath real depth is not the one that easily spSlleth over or drippeth so as to make a Black Spot • in the Vest Pocket nigh unto the hear. These things and others I remember when I fill my Fountain Pen.”