WORKING THE SALOON KEEPER FOR AN EXTRA FIVE—ALONE
AGAIN—ARRESTED—FIGHTING THE LICENSE—SICK—THE INSURANCE SCHEME—THE WHEEL
AND CIGAR DODGE—THE STAGE HOLD-UP—THE HORSE DOCTOR AND CHOLERA—CIGARS
TWO FOR A NICKEL—MAKING A PREACHER SWEAR.
Things went along apparently prosperous for some months, until the time
to form engagements for the fall and winter came around, when my best
people asked for a raise in salary.
At first I was inclined to grant it, for I liked the business, and, on
the face of things, I ought to make a fortune.
But the briefest reflection told me that I would be entering on a new
campaign, and like a wise and noble general I ought to sit down and
figure out the cost.
After that, though it took time, it was not hard to come to a
conclusion. I had been doing a thriving business, but I had the field
all to myself, with very little opposition from regular exhibitions. The
season was coming when the people in the towns which I would care to
work might have a surfeit of amusement.
I discovered, also, that if my receipts had been large, so also had been
my expenditures. I went on, figured out the profit, cost and loss and
decided to quit right then.
While apparently doing a business that should have yielded a large
surplus, my expenses were already so great that I was actually making
less money than when traveling alone, while a few weeks of poor
business, such as were liable at any moment to occur, would put me
decidedly in the hole. I paid off all salaries to the end of the month,
closed up my affairs, disbanded my company, and once more hit the road,
solitary and alone.
After all the noise and rush of the past months, the first few weeks
which followed were solemn, if not awful; but I stuck it out, found that
the portrait line was as good as ever, and what I made was my own. I
could visit towns which had been too small to stand the expense of the
troupe, but were full to the brim of untouched business, which I worked
after the same old style.
When a great battle is won by shrewd maneuvering they call it a splendid
display of strategy; when a fakir carries his point in the same way it
is branded as infernal trickery. Early in the battle of life I
discovered that I would have to do a great deal of strategical
maneuvering or starve; and I seldom failed, however well defended his
front might be, to turn the flank of the enemy if it was at all
unprotected, often snatching victory out of the very jaws of defeat.
Once, under peculiar provocation, I obtained an order from a saloon
keeper for a nice crayon portrait of his wife. I had great hopes of
getting an order for his own portrait also, and with that end in view,
and being naturally of a generous disposition when I circulated among
the boys, I spent about five dollars at the bar. When he turned me down
in what I thought rather a bare-faced style, I set about getting even.
His wife was a pronounced brunette, with black, curly hair, bright eyes
and clear-cut features, being an excellent subject for a portrait.
When the picture was finished it was really a very fine one, and taking
it around to the saloon a day or two before I had promised delivery I
asked his honor what he thought of it. He admired it immensely and was
more than pleased.
“Well,” said I, “it may be a surprise, but this picture is not for you.
The one you ordered is not finished yet, and this is done by a new
process and for a particular purpose.”
“If that is not for me I’d like to know who it is for?” he asked, about
as angry as he was surprised.
“For me,” I told him. “It is such a perfect picture, and such a splendid
example of what the new art will do, and what a magnificent picture can
be obtained for only ten dollars more, that the house has sent it to me
to canvass with.”
You can believe that he got dead stuck on the picture and wanted it
instead of the other. I asked him an increase of ten dollars for it, but
compromised by accepting from him five dollars more than the original
contract price. He never knew the difference, and I got back the money I
had spent at his saloon.
Things went along swimmingly for some time. So successful had I been
that I was feeling my oats all over, and expected to go right along
through the winter, when I ran foul of a legal proposition, and learned
the lesson that it takes money to buy justice; and though the law may be
on your side it sometimes requires an awfully long time to reach it.
Every man who has traveled on the road has probably had more or less
trouble about license; and the time arrived when I was to get my
experience. I was arrested while soliciting in the portrait business,
and was fined fifty dollars in a city court.
I was always rather a good fighter, anyway. I had what I thought at that
time plenty of money, and my business life seemed to be at stake.
Instead of paying that fine and letting the matter drop I took an appeal
and vowed to follow the matter up. When, finally, the state supreme
court affirmed the decision of the city court, and I still refused to
pay, I found myself tight in jail, with a suspicion that I had to
knuckle or remain there indefinitely.
I still had money to talk, and, as the frames were made in one state, I
was traveling in a second, and was a resident of a third, there was
little trouble in getting the case before the supreme court of the
United States, though it did seem to me it took a terrible long time for
that court to come to a decision on a very simple case.
When their opinion did come, however, it was in my favor, and reversed
all the lower courts.
The justices held, in effect, that a man could not be taxed for simply
making a living; that the license demanded from me had been an attempted
piece of extortion, which was an usurpation of power for the officers to
have sought to collect, when it was their duty to see that law and
justice were secured to all.
It was further held that no state nor city could levy a tax on
interstate commerce, in any form or guise, or on receipts derived from
that transportation, or on the occupation or business of carrying it on.
Of course, this was a great victory for me—when it came—but it did not
prevent me having some very uncomfortable months and a course of
treatment which might have meant ruin to some.
Perhaps they mistook their man. Certainly the authorities only
considered me as a thief and a vagabond from the very start, and were
determined to show me that a fakir had no rights which they were bound
to respect. I was arrested in the very harshest manner, and though a
couple of citizens temporarily signed as my security, it was not long
before I found myself in jail, where on entering I was stripped of my
diamonds and all the loose money I had in my pockets, which last was
quite a little sum. They appeared to want to make sure of the fifty
dollars fine and costs, and if possible to prevent my having any money
with which to fight the city in the courts and to make my stay in that
jail as uncomfortable as possible. My treatment there was simply vile,
and when I took a severe cold in an infernally bad cell, and through
lack of attention the cold drifted into pneumonia, I began to believe
there was a conspiracy to murder me. I think I would have died had it
not been for some good ladies, who at that very moment were being
sneered at for attempting to inaugurate practical Christianity by
visiting those who were sick and in prison. They managed to see that I
was nursed through to semi-convalescence, and made an effort to have my
fine remitted and a discharge granted. The county attorney appeared
against them, however, and as they were represented by a young man of
more goodness than knowledge of law or eloquence their prayer was
denied.
Feeling sure, then, that the city would remain obdurate, and that to
remain longer in prison would mean death, I paid fine and costs under
protest and crawled out to the free sunlight once more, “busted” in
health and pocket, and only too glad to get out.
In the end, as I have told, I procured a decision of the United States
court in my favor, and then my counsel came back on the city for
damages, eventually settling with the authorities for a nice little sum.
Long before that, however, I had largely recovered my health and spirits
and was once more on the high road to prosperity.
When I came out of prison I was in no condition, financially, to long
remain idle, for I had no idea of asking or receiving assistance from
the folks at home. Nor was I in condition physically to do the
exhaustive hustling I had been following for some years. I had to take
up with something easy, and as I had no capital to speak of there was no
time to pick and choose. I took up with the first thing which offered
employment, and considered myself lucky that as a stranger in a strange
place I was able to secure a position as solicitor for an insurance
scheme, which was certainly as big a fake as any I had ever met with.
The “company” had been organized long enough to inspire some confidence
and was doing a thriving business on the following scheme, which was
just a variation of what has been called the “graveyard” plan.
Any man could pay in by installments within ninety days the sum of
thirty dollars and have his life insured for one hundred, while on the
day after the last payment he could draw out sixty dollars in cash,
always provided he fulfilled faithfully certain conditions, the most
important of which was that within thirty days he was to furnish two new
members. Of course, the two new members had to do the same thing.
Some persons might think a fake like that could not win, but it did. Men
with plausible tongues can start almost anything, and once get a scheme
like this to going it soon grows into a regular epidemic. Where it would
have ended I cannot say, had not the state insurance commissioner
interfered, to the great disgust of the policy holders, who were willing
and anxious each to put up the remainder of his thirty dollars in order
that sixty might be drawn. The company made no great fight for life. It
had been making big money while it lasted, paid its agents well, and
dissolved with full pockets, leaving me improved in health, capital and
general knowledge of what the world wanted and was willing to pay for.
When the insurance scheme gave out I jumped the town, because I knew the
law was going to step in, and I had enjoyed my fill of legal
entanglements and didn’t want any more. With what money I had I went
down the road about twenty miles to a little station called B——. The
first thing I did was to put up at the only hotel there was in town. I
asked the landlord what his rates were. He took me into the dining room
and showed me two tables; one was covered with white cloth and the other
with Turkey red. Pointing to the white he said, “If you eat at this
table it will cost you two dollars a day and you get cake every meal,
but if you eat over there with the boarders it will cost you three
dollars per week, but you don’t git no cake.” I played the red for a
week and came out all right; but, oh, such a hotel. It was while here
looking for some light outdoor work that I fell in with a traveling
horse doctor. He had a scheme of his own and was working it to the
queen’s taste. I suspect that I knew more about horses than that doctor,
but that is neither here nor there. He claimed to have a sure cure for
hog cholera. I told him my predicament and he took me along.
His plan of treatment was to catch a hog, give him a hypodermic
injection close to the tail and then turn him loose. Charges were ten
cents per head.
There was cholera all around the neighborhood and for about four months
we did a nice business. One day, though, a large drove of hogs we had
just operated on suddenly took sick and died. The doctor heard of it in
time and skipped. So did I, and we went in different directions. The
last thing he did before we parted was to hand me three ten-dollar
bills, and I was on earth once more.
Here I was, adrift again, with a little money, but my health not at all
restored and my case before the supreme court of the United States still
hanging fire. I looked around for some light, open-air business and
invested in a wheel of fortune, some cigars and a license to run the
thing.
Probably the reader is familiar with the instrument, though it is not so
much in evidence now, I believe, as it was in those days. The
anti-gambling laws of many of the states have made it a less profitable
investment.
This wheel had six rows of numbers, from one to five, encircling it. I
charged five cents a turn and guaranteed a prize every time. For number
one I gave one cigar, for number two two cigars, and so on up to number
five.
Even if a man would win five cigars, which did not occur often, I was
not dangerously hurt, as I bought my stock low down, the average profits
on the thousand being an enormous per cent.
There was not “big money” in the wheel, but for a small venture the
returns were pretty fair, and with it as a companion I wandered over a
wide range of country, recovering my health, seeing the world and
gaining more experience. A little adventure in the west will give you an
idea of the sort of thing I was apt to meet with.
I took the stage for the small town of Gurnsville, and when I arrived
all was excitement on account of a wagon circus which was showing there.
I had not struck the show before, but imagined I was going to turn a
pretty penny off the crowd which would be in attendance.
To my disgust I found the authorities were not going to allow anything
that even looked like gambling. Circuses have an unholy reputation for
fleecing the public with all sorts of catch games, and the city had
resolved that the innocents should be protected, and reserved for the
faro banks and keno tables of the town, of which I understood there were
more than a sufficient supply usually in full blast. I could not get a
license to run my wheel of fortune with cigars.
In those days the majority of the citizens of Gurnsville, if they
smoked, used pipes. A cigar was considered to be the mark of a dead-game
sport, for the cheapest thing you could get was fifteen cents, or two
for a quarter. The storekeepers and merchants had pooled their issues to
a certain extent and united in a sort of trust to keep up prices. Wages
were high, so they could ask big prices, not only for cigars, but for
everything else.
I had about three thousand cigars with me and did not want to lose the
day, so I took out a license to sell on the street in the ordinary
manner. About this time I was more particular about the license than
before or since. I rented a small glass case and opened a stand right
near the show grounds.
I assorted the cigars, putting the light colored ones on one side and
the dark on the other. The medium shade I also separated. The light ones
I sold two for five cents, the dark ones five cents each, and the medium
ones for ten and fifteen cents. They were all of the same quality and
cost the same price, being as low an article as I could find that had a
half-way decent outside.
When the crowds began to gather about the tents, long before the hour
for opening the doors, I yelled at the top of my voice, “Right this way.
Two fine cigars for five cents.”
People there had never paid less than fifteen cents for one cigar, and
the idea of getting two for a nickel excited them. They fairly ran over
each other in getting to the case.
If a straggling fellow would come up with his “best gal” on his arm I
would call his attention to the better goods in the case. Of course,
rather than give his girl the impression he was close-fisted, and bought
cheap cigars, he would flip me a twenty-five-cent piece and take two for
a quarter. I sold out those three thousand cigars slick and clean, and
was sorry I had not a few thousand more. The result almost convinced me
that legitimate business beats gambling every time. I went away with
about three times as much money as I could possibly have had had they
allowed me to run my little old wheel of fortune.
That was doing pretty well, but see how pride goes before a fall. Having
sold out, and having a pretty fair little sum of money in my pockets, I
decided to turn my face from the frontier and seek a locality where I
could get into something which would more rapidly add to the small
fortune I had accumulated. I paid my fare and traveled like a gentleman.
The stage coach in which I journeyed was held up by road agents and I
was robbed of every cent I had, except the loose change in my pockets.
In consideration of my semi-clerical garb, I suppose, they made no
search of my person after I had handed out my wallet. In that way I
saved my ticket—which included both stage and railway transportation to
my destination, which was a small city, where I expected to do some
business—and a few dollars in silver.
I may say here that I never saw my wheel of fortune again. I had
supposed it was stowed in the boot of the stage, but when I got off it
was not there. The driver promised to start it for Munro on the next
stage out after he got back, but it never reached me. It seems it was
started all right, though, but the stage went over the rocks at a bad
place in the road and both were helplessly wrecked, while one of the
horses was killed on the spot. Fortunately, there were no passengers.
When I reached Munro on the train I met with a little adventure. It so
happened that a big revival meeting was in progress at the place and an
outside minister was expected to arrive on my train, who was to assist
the local ministers with the meeting.
Naturally, one of the members came to meet the brother; and naturally,
again, he took the daily hack which regularly met the train, since it
was about a mile and a half from the station to the town.
I was the only passenger to get off, and as I had a smooth-shaven face
and wore a Prince Albert coat the deacon supposed I was his man. He
rushed up, greeted me cordially, grasped my grip and invited me into the
hack.
I, naturally thinking he was a hotel runner (in these God-forsaken
places everyone wears such a forlorn and melancholy look that it is hard
to distinguish a preacher from a porter), followed without resistance.
We started off at a good gait, the way was rough, and the driver in a
hurry. We were the only passengers and sat on the same seat, the front
one being occupied by my valise and various packages which seemed to be
in care of the driver. Time after time, as the wheels struck a
particularly bad spot, my companion and I were jammed together.
Whenever this happened he would turn to me with what seemed to be a
surprised and aggrieved frown on his face and say:
“Look out, brother. Stop, stop.”
Finally, after a particularly big lurch, he said positively:
“See here, now, I want you to quit.”
As I was to blame no more than he for these little, unpleasant
accidents, I could not understand his taking them so seriously, but I
noticed that he kept getting redder in the face and madder the further
we traveled.
At first I took it for a local joke and tried to laugh it off, but the
more I laughed the madder he grew.
The hack was going at a rapid rate, and on turning sharply an angle in
the road we were jammed into each other more savagely than ever.
This time he jumped up as quick as a flash, his eyes blazing with rage,
and let forth such a torrent of words that he cut large holes in the
air. Whew! He gave me the worst tongue-lashing I ever got in my life,
beating the oration of a mother-in-law. Even she would not have used the
language he did, for it was scientifically applied and too strong for
ordinary use.
By this time I began to smell a mouse, and, taking things calmly,
induced him to explain. Then I made an investigation.
I had in my pocket a file, which I used to regulate my street torch. The
point of it had worked out, and every time we were jammed together he
would catch it in his side. The last time it caught him stronger than
ever, causing his extreme outburst.
He looked from my face to the file, and then from my face to the file
again.
Then, to my surprise, he suddenly covered his face with his hands and
burst into a flood of tears. I have heard men cry, both before and
since, but never a strong man weep like he did.
It did not turn me against him, but, on the contrary, I tried to console
him, and so his story came out. He was a reformed man, who kept violent
passions under control only by the greatest effort; and to him it seemed
he had sinned beyond pardon, and that there could be no hope for him in
the future.
I told him that if a good man could not fall we would have to pray not
to be led into temptation, and wound up with:
“My dear brother, God knows what has happened; you know and I know. We
three understand. The rest of the world might not. Let us keep it among
ourselves, and decide that anything of the kind shall not happen again.”
I think, perhaps, that little incident did us both good, though the
preacher was more than ever abashed when he learned that I was not a
brother clerico, but a traveling—I never explained to him what, for fear
the lesson I had read him might be thrown away.
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