Sunday morning globe., 1901-10-27

who runs big general store. He listed .am
at attractive figures, got rid OF them all in q
whoop, took out his bit and sent me along
enough TO pay me twice over for the gamble
''I made a buy a few years ago that
thought was going TO chiscl me The gov
eminent through the military authorities
auctioued of lot of old out0i date
cannon, brass affairs of the type known as
Napoleon cannon, I didn't have it figured
out how 1 could scare up war with any
body, but bought in those cannon anyhow
at a figure al which I could have made good
by selling the brass in case / couldn't get
rid of the things any other way.
"What dye think you'd do with big
circus tent If you had it2 was up against
this question three years ago, not because
I'd paid much for the tent for hadn't but
because I hate 20 have any Of my buys lay.
ing around loose aud not working. / don't
store -p anything for any very sizable
period / got this circus tent from big
show that was about to start for Europe, II
was patched in quite few spots but it was
in good shape The only reason the show
handed it over to me for a song or less was
that the outfit had been supplied completely
with new tents before starting for the
other side
"I had the tent and the poles and the rum
ming gear Of the thing slowed in a ware.
house on Water street, and 1 used to 90
down there once In a while and gaze at IL
and wonder what in the dickens I'd ever be
able to do with il. Il was far too big for
any ordinary campmeetiug, and il could
have been cut up in about hve hundred
gypsy tents. II wasn't the main tent of the
show, but had been the tent covering the
managerie, and it wasn't much shy of being
as big as the main tent
"Just when it began to seem TO me that
the only way ia ever get my coin back on
that tent would be TO send it to a mill to be
turned into paper 10 and behold. l see an
ad in a Chicago newspaper that makes it all
right The organizers of a big summer
school in central Illinois were advertising
for just as big second hand tent as could
be purchased at a reasonable figure got
Just sixty times what ia paid for the tent
FROM these people Pm sorry TO say that
the second day it was raised by the summer
school folks, one of those Mississippi Val
ley t0ruadoes came a-whooping along and
ripped 10 into ribbons but that wasn't the
fault of the teut--it was the fault of the
Mississippi Valley.
"It may be that I've had a lot of luck 300
this game but it's a fact that something has
always turned up 20 give a value to some of
the most impossible truck I've ever bought
Five years ago I bought 5000 and some odd
pairs of rubber boots that had been wet
down some, but not damaged. iu a fire that
ruined the manufacturing plant Now rub
Der boots are pretty slow sellers at the best
Of times, and by the time you've got rid of
5000 pairs of rubber boots you'll be about
ready TO go of on a vacation, especially II
they've been made just a teeny little Bit of
color by water from the fremen's hose.
But got the things at such a scandal
ously small figure that ! just had to buy EN-,
willy nilly, and so / became possessed of
'em Stored 'em in a warehouse In New
York, and began TO keep up such a steady
thinking as to how I'd ever get rid of 'em
that I didn't hear my wife half the time she
was asking me for money. I circulated
around among the dealers, and they gave
me the hoarse hoot and the happy holler
and told me that they'd have been selling
me gold bricks years ago If they'd only
known I was such a come-ou.
"Then the news of the pay dirt they were
striking up around Dawson got out and the
Kloudike fever was on. 1 sent two men
out with thoss rubber boots. One of them
went TO Portland Ore, and the other TO Ta-
coma Wash, the two points at which the
chief Quitting was done by the fellows
WHO got the goldbug loo their heads and
started on the hike for the Kloudike The
bunch were piiiug into those two towns 500
fast that all kinds of Quitting gear jumped
TO premium prices, and my men not only
gotmI value for those rubber boots, but iu
most cases they got twice the regular mar
ket value for them So, ont of this buy.
that looked like the deadest kind of frost.
coppcd ont ass much money as ever did
before or since iu single deal ! never
listen tothe wise people any more boo COM
sequence. and ia as lief buy a pig M
poke as not it ] can get the pig at my
figure.
"Every year the United States govern
menl holds an auction sale down in Wash
iugyon of hundreds of condemned type
writer's thatve been in use In the govern
m-nt departments just why the great
majority of these machines are condemned,
considering the excellent condition in
which most of them are, is question that
I've got nothing Co do with but Pm always
down at these sales, and I generally get my
share of the machines Get 'em at an
average price of ~. II doesn't take much
unkgriug on the part of experts at the type
writer business TO make these machines
topuolch lypewrI,er-, almost as good as
new, and / feel real sad when i dou't take
ont a clean up of at least 500 per cent on
each and every one of them that / get hold
Of"