f life; for, as
refinement advances, the common affairs of everyday existence, feeling
the influence first, assume a degree of order and arrangement; and from
the display of this improvement, the trader might draw inferences
favorable to his traffic. Eating, for example, as he would perceive, is
done at certain hours of the day--sleep is taken between fixed periods
of the night and morning--especially, public worship--which is one of
the best and surest signs of social advancement--must be held at a time
generally understood.

The peddler might conclude, also, when he saw a glazed window in a
house, that the owner was already possessed of a clock--which, perhaps,
needed repairing--or, at least, was in great need of one, if he had not
yet made the purchase. One of these shrewd "calculators" once told me,
that, when he saw a man with four panes of glass in his house, and no
clock, he either sold him one straightway, or "set him down crazy, or a
screw."

"Have you no other 'signs of promise'"? I asked.

"O yes," he replied, "many! For instance: When I am riding past a
house--(I always ride slowly)--I take a general and particular survey of
the premises--or, as the military men say, I make a _reconnaissance_;
and it must be a very bare place, indeed, if I can not see some 'sign,'
by which to determine, whether the owner needs a clock. If I see the
man, himself, I look at his extremities; and by the appearance of hat
and boot, I make up my opinion as to whether he knows the value of time:
if he wears anything but a cap, I can pretty fairly calculate upon
selling him a clock; and if, to the hat, he has added _boots_, I halt at
once, and, without ceremony, carry a good one in.

"When I see the wife, instead of the husband, I have no difficulty in
making up my mind--though the signs about the women are so numerous and
minute, that it would be hard to explain them. If one wears a
check-apron and sports a calico dress, I know that a 'travelling
merchant' has been in the neighborhood; and if he has succeeded in
making a reasonable number of sales, I am certain that he has given her
such a taste for buying, that I can sell her anything at all: for
purchasing cheap goods, to a woman, is like sipping good liquor, to a
man--she soon acquires the appetite, and thenceforward it is insatiable.

"I have some customers who have a _passion_ for clocks. There is a man
on this road, who has one for every room in his house; and I have
an