"It's almost the end of our time together," Hatter said once his small class filed in. "Almost but not quite. Did any of you go and observe businesses last week? Anything you'd like to share?"

He gave the students an opportunity to share before moving on.

"Now, moving onto one of our final lessons," he said, sighing oh so sadly. "When running a business, there'll come times when you have to might come to the end of the line. Perhaps what you were selling became a fashionably faded fad or you just didn't sell enough or your rent went up or any variety of ideas. Now, you've got to close your shop down but you want to do with dignity. You don't want to burn bridges and totally kill your chances at getting back into the game later on."

He pushed his hat back a bit. "Closing down a business means letting go of employees, selling your remaining stock, terminating various places that provide you with inventory and still trying to look good while doing so. Do you take an aggressive stance and just do all that with a rock steady hand? Do you do it softly and chance looking weak and timid? Do you do it humorously? Maybe throw a party and make it a big joke?"

He nodded to the students. "How would you close a business down?"