Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1906-11-15
DAILY STORY.
A WOMAN COLLECTOR.
[Original.J

[OriginalJ
''The firm name was Shirts & Shinn,'
said the retired hardware dealer, land
we didn't get on from the start. l
had good trade and was obliged to
be on the road most of the time This
left the buying to my partner. The
trouble was that he wasn't any kind of
with cock and bull story about a
sick wife and n dozen or so starving
children Shinn would buy a bill of
goods of him whether we wanted them
or not. The consequence was that ev-
cry time / came in / found the stock
growing in spite of my efforts to re-
duce it.
''Well, the result of It all was that
weeping drummers finally succeeded
in turning the store into Il junk shop,
and we had to quit. Shinn, as he
should have done, offered to stand the
loss, giving up all the capital he'd put
in, acknowledging that the outcome
had been entirely his fault. If 1 could
have closed up at once his money
would have been just enough to square
us, with no loss to me. but the very
day we closed along comes Il one leg
ged-commercial traveller he called him
self-cOnsumptive, wheeling through
one lung. and Shinn had to order q
5000 bill of him. We closed the order
out at about GO cents on the dollar,
making a deficiency Of $1S7.42. This
Shinn agreed to pay as soon he was
able
''Shinn was q bachelor and removed
from his rooms in an apartment house
to a little shanty 1 sent man around
to collect his Indebtedness. but he came
back empty handed. / sent another
with orders to be more persistent, and
he came back, reporting that the door
had been slammed in his face. l used
to see Shinn occasionally on the street.
He looked morose and shabby. One
day / saw him give quarter to beg
gar. That made me mad If he had
money to give such nuisances he had it
to pay his honest debts. l hired reg
ular fighting collector and sent him
round to Shinn's shanty. He came
back with his head bandaged up. q
black eye and swelled lip, to say
nothing of the loss of suit of clothes.
II hired several men in succession to
go and get into the house and stay
there till Shinn came down with the
funds. The first one that came back
reported he'd been thrown out, the sec
ond shared the same fate and the third
and the fourth and so on likewise.
''Then it occurred to me that I'd send
4 woman. You see. man can't fight
woman, and there never was Il woman
yet that couldn't get the better of
man if she wanted to. There. was no
woman's collecting agency in the town,
SO 1 told several friends of mine that
I'd give half the debt to any woman
who'd collect it.
About month after making the
announcement n young, good looking
woman came to see me and said she'd
heard l wanted debt collected of
Percy Shinn. She didn't look like
business woman at all, but concluded
to try her. SO l gave her an order for
the money and started her out.
1T was o'clock when she left me,
and Iwaited with good deal of anx-
lclN " lcstIn AOW Sutull MOultl Luecl
this new enemy. I expected her back
in about an hour. Four o'clock came,
but no collector -5, 6, Z, and she
didn't show up. In fact. she didn't
show up that night nor the next day
nor the next nor the next. A week
passed, and began to think Shnn had
murdered her. Funny, wasn't it? Ev-
cry man I'd sent had come back after
having been thrown out; the only wo-
man I'd sent didn't come back at all.
Then l fancied maybe the woman
had collected the money or part of it
and gone off with 1t. At the same time
it occurred to me that 1 had stupidity
omitted to take her address. 1 con-
cluded to notify the police and started
out to do so, but thought I'd take a
look on the way at Shinn's house. So
l went roundabout way and brought
up opposite tie shanty. Somehow it
didn't look so tumbledown as before
There We're white holland shades in the
windows and few flowers in the yard
in front
"A woman came out of house near
where l was standing. and l asked her
who lived in the house opposite. She
said, Mr.. Shinn.' Any one with him?'
His wife, L didn't know he was
married. He wasn't short time
ago. There's story connected with
1t. Mr.. Shinn owed some old curmudg-
con some money and sent a young wo-
man to collect 1t. She was real smart
She told him she was to get half the
amount collected: that she was the on
" support of a widowed mother and
seven brothers and sisters. She gave
such pitiful picture that Shinn. who
bad been long while starving himself
70 pay the debt and had just saved the
last penny, went and got it and gave
t to her. You see somebody had told
ter what kind of a man Shinn was.
She was so cut up by his lovable man.
ner that she told him to keep the mon
~ for all her and he said hq yyouid