Typically, they might start with a bit of showmanship by George... as when, one time, he called in "Poppsy" his secretary - an old rough-and-ready who was kind of his female straight man. 

    "Poppsy", he roared. "Bring in the bills - time to pay some of these accounts..."

    Poppsy materialized with a handful of bills - and many duns...

    George then made a great show of reading the duns out loud to the staff  while apparently growing more and more indignant by the minute.  Finally, in exasperation he requested Poppsy to "take a letter" to that last fellow.  Out came Poppsy's steno pad and she waited... 

    "Dear So-and-So", George dictated.  "It has come to my attention that you have been making very intemperate demands recently for monies claimed owed you.  Now, Mr. So-and-So that's as may, as may be.

    "But I think you should know how we pay our bills around here.  Once a month, my secretary, Poppsy, puts all the bills in the wastebasket!  Then she brings the basket to my desk. I reach in and pull one bill out - and that,  Mr. So-and-So,  is the bill we pay that month!   

    "And I just want to notify you that if I receive any more such intemperate demands as the current one, why your bill is not even going into the wastebasket!"

    Signed, etc. 
 

##

    Let's see?  We had left George hadn't we, at the tender age of ten or thereabouts, with his first honest day's pay as a trader in smoked hams, right?  Yes - well, for George as for all of us - the years rolled on.  When he was about 17 or so, he heard about some Army Barracks (it might have been up at Ft. Riley) that were due to be torn down and carted away.  Somehow, someway he contrived to persuade the powers-that-be to let him have the contract to demolish these barracks (coming events were casting their shadows, had he but known).  It all involved George's having learned in other quarters of an acute shortage of nails and building hardware that year out on the Kansas plains. 

    In short, he got permission - and he and his cronies tore down and then ultimately burnt up the condemned barracks.  But hardly had the ashes cooled, before with garden rakes and perseverance, they scrounged through the ashes and salvaged tons of nails and fittings.  These latter they packaged and sold at a tidy profit to hardware stores and farmers around the region.  This earned him the enmity of several older contractors who had not seen a way to take the assignment without a loss... 

    Services to farmers early-on molded George's developing talents.  The way he told it, back in these pre Depression years, when he had been busy making the rounds with his termite poison, he had made the telling observation that most of these old farmers and their wives had nothing to do in a pre radio era but sit out on the porch glider and watch the world go by... 

    George knew a captive audience where he saw one.  Single-handledly, and at a young age, he  brought into being  a magazine directed to their needs: Family Home and Farm Journal.  This grew under his editorship into one of America's foremost early "shelter" journals: Country Gentleman, if memory serves.  In its early days, it was regarded by American farmers as the most authoritative publication in their homes other than the Bible and the Farmers' Almanac.  It was in fact, still in existence as late as the '50's I think. One surmises it must be long defunct now.