nt. He had less than half a dollar
in his own pocket. Patching was, as usual, reduced to his last
five-dollar bill. Marcus had incidentally observed, a few minutes
before, that he had left his wallet at home, and had only a handful of
small silver about him. Suppose the panorama should fail on the first
night, and be detained for debt! Tiffles had not thought of that.

Tiffles remonstrated, entreated, suggested compromises, but all to no
purpose. Boolpin was iron. The best arrangement that Tiffles could make,
was to postpone the final settlement of the terms until after the
performance. To that, Boolpin had not the least objection.

"One thing more," said Boolpin. "If there is a row, and any seats or
windows are broken, you are to pay the damages."

Tiffles laughed faintly. "Oh! of course," said he. "But you never have
rows here, do you?" He put the question with disguised interest.

"Sometimes," carelessly replied Mr. Boolpin. "There was a legerdemain
man got his machinery knocked to pieces, and his head broken. The mob
was quite reasonable about the furniture, and smashed only ten seats and
sixteen panes of glass. I charged the Professor twenty dollars for
damages, but took off two dollars on account of his illness. Poor
fellow! he was laid up more than a month. Then there was a band of
nigger minstrels, called the 'Metropoliganians.' They were regular
humbugs; and so the mob took them, and tarred and feathered them in the
back lot. Damage to furniture on that occasion was only sixteen dollars;
and I got every cent of it, by holding on to their trunks. There have
been a good many such little affairs in this village. I mention these
two cases only as examples."

"And yet no people in the world is more peaceable, nor more easily
satisfied, than the people of this town," said the postmaster. "They
only axes not to be imposed on. That's all."

"A kinder-hearted people don't live on the face of this earth," added
Boolpin, stating the case in another way; "but you mustn't give them
less than twenty-five cents' worth for a quarter."

Tiffles replied to the effect that he would give them a dollar's worth
apiece; but, in his heart, he foresaw, with that remarkable prescience
which is occasionally vouchsafed to mortals, that the panorama of Africa
was doomed to be a bad failure; and he bitterly regretted that he had
not tried some one of a dozen other immense speculations which he had
thought of. But he determined to giv