“Well, well, so you always say,” said my friend, who perfectly understood
me; “but you cannot miss this time. I have just heard from a confidential
friend that Mr Bowman is about to retire from business, and that he is
on the lookout for a respectable person to purchase his stock in trade,
and the good will of his shop, privately. Now, Bob, that’s just the thing
for you. You know the trade; you know, too, that Mr Bowman has realised a
handsome fortune in it, and that his shop, where that fortune was made,
has the best business in town.”
Now, all this that my friend said was true, perfectly true. Mr Bowman
had made a fortune in the shop alluded to. It had by far the best run in
town: it was crowded with customers from morning till night. But I felt
quite confident that the moment _I_ took the shop there would be an end
of its prosperity. However, my friends prevailed. To please them, and
to show that I was willing to do any thing to better my circumstances,
I took the shop. I bought the stock and good will of the business, and
entered on possession. My friends all congratulated me, and declared that
my fortune was made. I knew better.
However, to give the speculation fair play, a thing I thought due to it,
I prevailed on Mr Bowman to forego the usual proceeding in such cases of
advertising his retirement from business and recommending _me_ as his
successor, because I knew that if he did so, all chance of my doing any
good would be instantly knocked on the head. Recommend me! Why, the bare
mention of my name--any allusion to it--would be certain and immediate
destruction to me. I knew that if the public was made aware that _I_ had
succeeded to the business, it would instantly desert the shop.
Impressed with this conviction, I had the whole matter and manner of the
transfer of property and interest in the shop managed with the utmost
privacy and secrecy, my object being to slip unperceived and unobserved,
as it were, into my predecessor’s place, that the public might not have
the slightest hint of the change.
In order further to secure this important secret, I would not permit the
slightest alteration to be made, either on the shop itself, or on any of
its multifarious contents. I would not allow a box, or an article of any
kind, not even a nail, to be removed or shifted from its place, for fear
of giving the public the slightest clue to the fact of the shop’s being
now mine. As to my own appearance in it, which of course could not be
avoided, I hoped that I might pass for a shopman of Mr Bowman’s.
All, however, as I expected, was in vain. The public by some intuitive
instinct, as it seemed to me, discovered that I was now proprietor of
the shop, and took its measures accordingly. On the very first day that
I took my place behind the counter, I thought it looked shy at me. I was
not mistaken. Day after day my customers became fewer and fewer, until
hardly one would enter the shop.
Being quite prepared for this result, I felt neither surprise nor
disappointment, but shortly after coolly disposed of the shop, and all
that was in it, to another party, who, as I wish every body well, I am
glad to say, did, according to his own account, amazingly well in it, he
declaring to me himself that it fulfilled his most sanguine expectations.
It could not be otherwise, for, as I well knew would be the case, the
moment _I_ quitted the counter, and this person took my place, the stream
of public patronage returned; customers came thronging in faster than he
and two stout active shopmen could serve them.
Now, in this affair, as in all others of a similar kind, my friends
confessed that I had given the spec fair play, and that there was nothing
on my part to which they could attribute the blame of failure. Unable to
account for it, therefore, they merely shrugged their shoulders and said,
“It was odd; they didn’t understand it.” Neither did I, good reader; but
so it was.
One rather odd feature in my case I may mention. Although I never
actually succeed in anything, I am always _very near_ doing so--very
near getting every thing--within an ace, in almost every instance,
of obtaining all I want. My friends are frequently _bitten_ by this
will-o’-the-wisp in my fortunes, and have fifty times congratulated me on
the strength of its deceptive promises or successes, which of course are
never realised.
In reply to their congratulations on such occasions, I merely smile and
shake my head; adding, perhaps, “Not so fast, my good friends; wait a bit
and you’ll see. I have been as _near_ my mark a hundred times before.”
Perhaps the reader would like to glance at a case in point. I will
present it to him: it is not yet three weeks old. I applied for a certain
appointment in the gift of a certain board. Here is the reply of the
secretary, who was my personal friend:--“My dear Sir, I am exceedingly
happy to inform you that your application, which was this day read at the
board, has been _most favourably received_. Indeed, from what has passed
on the subject, I may assure you of success, and beg to congratulate you
accordingly. Your success would not perhaps have been quite so certain
had Mr S-- been at home, as he would probably support his friend B., who
is the only person you had to fear. But Mr S--, who is on the continent
(at Carlsbad), is not expected for a fortnight, and _cannot_ be here for
a week at the soonest; so you are safe.”
“Well, then, _now_ surely, Bob,” said my friends to whom I showed this
letter, “you cannot doubt of your success in this instance.”
“No, indeed!” exclaimed I, with the usual shake of the head and
accompanying smile of incredulity; “never had less expectation from any
thing in my life. Don’t you see, Mr S-- _will_ be home in time, and
_will_ give his powerful interest to my rival?”
“Impossible, my dear sir; Mr S-- is at Carlsbad, and _cannot_ be home in
less than a week. Neither steam-boat nor rail-road could enable him to
accomplish such a feat.”
“No, but a balloon might; and depend upon it a balloon he will take,
rather than I should get the situation. This he’ll certainly do, although
he knows nothing of what is going on.”
* * * * *
“There’s the postman, my dear,” said I with gentleness and equanimity to
my wife, on the morning of the third day after the conversation above
alluded to had taken place. “It is a letter from my friend Secretary
Wilkins, to inform me that I have lost the situation of ----; that Mr
S--, performing miracles in the way of expedition, although not impelled
by any particular motive, came home just in time to support his friend
and, of course, to cut me out.”
It was precisely so. “My dear Sir,” began my friend’s letter, “I am truly
sorry to inform you”----I read no more; not another word. It was quite
unnecessary; I knew it all before. So, laying the letter gently on the
table, I said with my wonted smile, “Exactly; all right!”
Now, does the reader think that, in this, or in any other similar case, I
gave myself the smallest uneasiness about the result? Not I, indeed--not
the smallest. I expected no success, and was not therefore disappointed.