h appearing rather green and
awkward, made a very handsome and stylish pair. He stopped near our
carriage, and I inquired how old his horses were. He said four years. I
asked:

"How will you trade teams with me?"

After looking my horses over carefully, and without leaving his
carriage, he replied:

"For one hundred and twenty-five dollars to boot."

"All right, sir. Here is your money," and I counted it out and handed it
over to him.

"But what sort of a team are you trading me?"

"No matter, sir. You have got your money, so unhitch, and I'll do the
same."

He hesitated a moment, but when the crowd of men standing by began
laughing at him, he commenced to unhitch.

Before leaving him I remarked that I had too much business on hand to
spend any time with a lame horse, nor did I care to dicker a minute on a
horse trade.

Ten minutes later we were driving off with a pair of colts that had
never been hitched or driven but three times.

We finished our business in Northern Michigan, and drove this team home,
where I broke them to drive tandem.

The following spring I started on the road with my team hitched tandem
to a two-wheeled cart with my advertisement on the side and back.

A few weeks later I hired a Mr. Rhodes to travel for me, and he took
charge of the tandem team and traveled with them. They made a splendid
advertisement for my business and it was looked upon by our customers as
quite a novel way to travel.

I now remained at home and had my hands full looking after the failures
that were coming thick and fast. It seemed to me that every other man
who failed was owing me.

Dr. Frank was still with me and rendered very valuable service in the
collection of hard accounts. He had not entirely gotten over his
pugilistic propensities, and whenever I found it necessary to instruct
him to call on a dead beat and "bring something back with him," he
generally returned with a wad of money or a wad of hair.

About this time I had a little experience myself, at a town in Ohio,
which might be worth mentioning. One of my customers, a retail jeweler,
was owing me over eleven hundred dollars. As we could get no word from
him in answer to our request for a remittance, we made a draft on him,
and were informed by the banker that the firm had "gone up" three or
four weeks before; also that the store was being run by a man who had
bought it at sheriff's sale to satisfy a chattel mortgage. Only two
months before,