Excepting these items we shall be glad to receive any orders at Friday's quotations.
Your order of the 20th instant forwarded from our Trenton office came this morning. We regret to say however that we do not carry the Sanito brand of canned goods as we do not consider the grade first-class. If the Monsoon brand which is generally acknowledged to be excellent will serve your purpose we can fill your order at once.
We are now in a position to supply the trade with Mrs. Keller's coffee of which we have fortunately secured several thousand packages at a very low price. If you wish any at $2.50 per dozen packages less than half the retail price you will notice let us hear from you at once.
We acknowledge your letter of October 5 but we regret that as yet we have no information in regard to the excess charge of $1.02 which you were obliged to pay on the express shipment of one piece 27 yds. of plaid silk chiffon. We have taken up the matter with the mill however and as soon as we receive their report we shall write you again.
[4] Supply heading and introduction (see page 232).
BUSINESS men like to talk of brevity. They tell you that a talk or a letter must be brief. What they really mean is that the talk or the letter must be concise; that it must state the business clearly in the fewest possible words. Don't omit any essential fact when you write, but don't repeat. If you can express an idea in ten words, don't use twenty. In a later exercise we shall meet the sentence, _The size of the crops is always important, and it is especially so to the farmer, and this is because he has to live by the crops._ The writer of that sentence was very careless. He had a good idea and thought that, if he kept repeating it, he would make it stronger. Just the reverse is true. The sentence may be expressed in a very few words: _The size of the crop is vitally important to the farmer._
If you wish to secure conciseness of expression, be especially careful to avoid joining or completing thoughts by these expressions: _and_, _so_, _why_, _that is why_, _this is the reason_, _and everything_.
In this chapter we shall consider some of the larger faults that should be avoided in sentences.
How many thoughts may one sentence express?