The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1885-03-26

So waited another month, and there
was nothin' more. In another month
an order came from Arkansas. They
wanted The Perils of the Sea out there
for one night only. Then orders
stopped comm entirely. The lecture
bureau man says, If you don't feel
like payin' the expenses to fill these
perhaps I'd better ar
range to hand 'em over to somebody
else?'
81 guess you better had l says,
and with that quits the lecture plat
form. The next thing | went into
was real estate. | stayed in All office
about three months, till I'd learned
the business better than the parties
themselves. Real estate amt no trick
at all The old lady came down hand
some, and fitted me out an office Of
my own,-Pine Street,-black-walnut
furniture,-gold lettering in the plate
glass window. put a big advertise
ment in the Herald d,-'City and coun-
try property for sale and to rent.
Half a million dollars to loan on ap-
proved mortgages, and sat back
smoking my cigarettes, and waiting
for customers. | hadn't cent to
loan, nor shanty to rent. If any
body came IN, though, | was going to
shin around among the other agents
and get some, and divide commissions.
TIE first quarter nobody came in but
d Bowery Dutchman, who wanted to
borrow ten thousand dollars on an old
rookery that wasn't worth two thou
sand; you wouldn't hardly take it for
a gift. The second quarter wasn't any
better Every night, mostly. the old
lady used to ask me how much busi-
ness I'd done that day, and | had to
tell her Finally a third quarter $
rent came due, and the old lady began
to kick. I won't put up another
blessed cent she says. You JUS. sell
the furniture, and skip out of it
These, again, could not have been
the precise words, but only the gist, of
his mothers directions.
But the way the drug-business
panned out was even worse. | went
into that. next.-wholesale drugs and
dve-stuffs. There was young feller,
that I'd known for some time, who
travelled for house in that line. He
told me that the customers had all
rather buy of him than his firm. If
you and | could go in together, and
take store, and | had five hundred
dollars for years travelin' expenses.
he says, we could make things boom
I talked the old lady into this. too
We set up in Pearl Street this time
no hummery and fancy furniture now
but cobwebs, inky old desks, and big
ledgers,-the heavy respectable dodge
see? We scattered around some
empty carboys and some indigo anf
cutch; it looked as if we'd been estab
: lished forty years and were doing /;
| business Of million year. | was tC
stav in the office and fill the orders
and he was to send 'em in. Well, il
two months the years travelin' ex
| penses was used up. Most of tn,
/ shipments we made was returned OF
| our hands, N. G.'-No Good. Som
of the mistakes was mine, but most o
'em his. He'd been on steady spre
{ the whole time,-I didn't know he wa
t that kind of fpller,-and I got new
/ at last that he'd been lying drunl
) somewhere in Vermont for two weeks
' and then | closed up the place. ON
| by one the roses fade;' it beats all hov
circumstances used to turn out agains
me every time"
"You do seem to have had rathe
bad luck"
, Luck is no name for it. The mex
thing | tried was bein' a detective
, I'd always had fancy for that kint
of business, and KNOWN the rope
: about town, and hayin' seen as mucl
: as had, | thought I'd make goo,
one. The old lady didn't like it at all
But she'd begun to get tired Of puttins
: up money for me, and this was some
, thing that didn't take no capital
: got a place in a detective agency
They set me to work shadowing
, house where some woman lived who's
) husband wanted to get divorce
+, without publicity, or something tha
: way. My watch was nights, and mos
all nigt, too; and it was precious COLI
and lonesome, can tell you, hangins
round them corners in December. AL
r Of sudden the police on the bea
grabbed me one night, and run me il
: for a suspicious character. There hat
: been burglaries in the neig ghborhood
and they thought, frotn the way | wa
manpuvring, that | was the one tina
, had done 'em. They locked me up
and wouldn't let me go till I had t,
l explain to 'e:n what I was up to- Tn,
r woman, she got wind of it and wen
off. and the office bounced me for bein
double dashed fat. A detective hac
} MT oug hit to give away his racket tt
any police or nobody else. no matte,
what happens to him, see? Yes. sir
| was more broke up by that thar
! most anything else | can think of
The newspaper reportin' wasn't 81
, bad, for I never really looked at tina
as so much in N, ii2s''
What! a reporter, too? Would th'
line Of his occupations stretch out tt
the crack of doom?
II had relation who owned a news
paper, and he gave me job on it as
local reporter. That suited the ole
lady to T. She was expectin' me t.
be kind of Horace Greeley, in NJ
time. But if there ever was dry tim,
for news, that was it. [ tore around
with my little notebook ready and my
pencil out, but not thing happened
There wasn't fire, murder, collision
assault and battery,-not an accident
of any kind. | boned the police anC
coroners, and tackled the under
takers, hack-men, and omnibus
drivers. If | saw anybody anywheres
lookin' the least excited, | grabbed
him, and asked him what was the
matter. | went up 70 the gang again
but even they had quieted down just