ly, as a mere ice-breaker and acquaintanceship-breeder--then they
dropped into business. It soon transpired that they were drummers--one
belonging in Cincinnati, the other in New Orleans. Brisk men, energetic
of movement and speech; the dollar their god, how to get it their
religion.

'Now as to this article,' said Cincinnati, slashing into the ostensible
butter and holding forward a slab of it on his knife-blade, 'it's from
our house; look at it--smell of it--taste it. Put any test on it you
want to. Take your own time--no hurry--make it thorough. There
now--what do you say? butter, ain't it. Not by a thundering sight--it's
oleomargarine! Yes, sir, that's what it is--oleomargarine. You can't
tell it from butter; by George, an EXPERT can't. It's from our house. We
supply most of the boats in the West; there's hardly a pound of butter
on one of them. We are crawling right along--JUMPING right along is the
word. We are going to have that entire trade. Yes, and the hotel trade,
too. You are going to see the day, pretty soon, when you can't find an
ounce of butter to bless yourself with, in any hotel in the Mississippi
and Ohio Valleys, outside of the biggest cities. Why, we are turning
out oleomargarine NOW by the thousands of tons. And we can sell it so
dirt-cheap that the whole country has GOT to take it--can't get around
it you see. Butter don't stand any show--there ain't any chance for
competition. Butter's had its DAY--and from this out, butter goes to the
wall. There's more money in oleomargarine than--why, you can't imagine
the business we do. I've stopped in every town from Cincinnati to
Natchez; and I've sent home big orders from every one of them.'

And so-forth and so-on, for ten minutes longer, in the same fervid
strain. Then New Orleans piped up and said--

Yes, it's a first-rate imitation, that's a certainty; but it ain't the
only one around that's first-rate. For instance, they make olive-oil out
of cotton-seed oil, nowadays, so that you can't tell them apart.'

'Yes, that's so,' responded Cincinnati, 'and it was a tip-top business
for a while. They sent it over and brought it back from France and
Italy, with the United States custom-house mark on it to indorse it for
genuine, and there was no end of cash in it; but France and Italy broke
up the game--of course they naturally would. Cracked on such a rattling
impost that cotton-seed olive-oil couldn't stand the raise; had to hang
up and quit.'

'Oh, it