Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1907-01-03
::::: BY B. L. FARJEON. So:

CdIle luIO VIEW uibO papeLs upoA
which was written:
"For my boy, Tom. If he's buried
me with feathers. they'll bring him
luck"
Deliriously delighted at the discov-
cry of the treasure, Thomas Dexter
clapped the old-fashioned nightcap on
his head and danced about the room
10 a tune of his own composing, the
music being the jingling of the sover-
eigns In the followed palms of his
hands.
The next morning, being in a more
composed frame Of mind, he took the
shop down stairs, which happened to
be let, and set up as his own master.
He attended auctions and bought
odds and ends. Nothing in the regular
way at regular prices.
He knew a trick worth two Of that.
He had a craze for the antique. Any
thing in that line-chipped and cracked
china, never mind how Clipped and
cracked; rickety old furniture, never
mind how rickety; miscellaneous lots,
the more miscellaneous the better
these were his hobby. And some kind
of good luck or good judgment, or both
combined, stood always at his elbow,
invisibly guarding his interests.
These ugly, crooked, pOck marked
little men generally prosper, especially
if they live on bread and salt butter, or
bread and no butter, with an occa-
sional herring and an ample supply OF
potatoes, with perhaps, at long inter-
walls, q little bit of meat, wisely select
cd, and bought on the political economy
principle.
And what finer spot in all the wide
world for living economically is there
than Clare Market where the cheap
enag process goes on increasingly the
whole year through, from early in the
morning till late in the night, when the
grease and tar lamps are fiaring in the
wind?
Little Make-B Believe could nave told
you something about that.
She was intimately acquainted with
all the entanglements and tortuOus
windings of Clare Market, and, young
as she was, had grown in the habit of
lingering by the side of pale-faced
women who stood before the butchers
board striving to coax the man in the
blue flannel apron to take a halfpenny
a pound less, or at least to cut off
little of the superhuods fat with which
the meat was fringed-efforts which
were very rarely successful.
When Little MakeBelieve witnessed.
the conclusion Of such a bargain she
would run to some convenient window
sill, where with an imaginary knife,
she would cut away all the imaginary
fat from an imaginary piece of meat,
and hand it to an imaginary poor wOm-
an, saying, with the air of trader
who is doing splendid stroke Of busi-
ness:
There! Will that suit yer at tup-
pence pound? Never mind the money.
Pay me when yer like"
At the end of thirty-three years you
fIlSHl nave nultlplieu W Ioui tSSh INV
fourteen sovereigns Thomas Dexter
found in his fathers old-fashioned,
nightcap, and have multiplied that
again by fourteen, and you would still
have fallen short of the extent Of his
riches.
Not that he had any idea how much
he was worth. That he had no dispo-
siton to count and glOat over his
money and possessions was sufficient
proof that the grain of his nature was
not mercenary.
He was simply man engrossed In
his business, and he attended to 1t
patiently and shrewdly until his shop
became crowded with the strangest,
ever gathered under one roof.
He took premises at the back OF his
shop, and almost before he could look
around they became crowded also. Old
armor old brasses, old carvings, old
lace, old enamels, old furniture, filled,
every nook and corner, and when a
certain erratic taste for anything an
cient and hideous came into vogue 1t
was as good as little fortune to him.
Prosperity did not change him in the
least. From a crooked, ugly, pock-
marked young man, he grew into a
ugly, pOck-marked middle
aged man, and further on into a
ugly, pockmarked old man.
Despising everything new, he never
from the day he set up as his own
master wore new coat, a new hat, or
a new pair of boots. Anything second
hand in the way Of clothing suited him
If it was large enough, and as it was
not the slightest consequence If 1t We're
many sizes too large, his appearance
was that of clumsily done
up bundle.
As for the money he accumulated, he
kept it anywhere except in bank-in
corners of his shop not accessible to
customers, under the flooring, in the
broken ceiling, in the walls, in old
adde's, in cobwebbed crevices, tied up
in bits of old calico and canvas and
chamoIs leather bags.
Some of these packages looked like
legs Of mutton; some like
fingers and thumbs with large bread
poultices on them.
He had the greatest difficulty In
himself of night into the
little room at the back Of his shop In
which he slept, SO packed was it with
valuable oddments.