around about my organ of order. It was nearly a gone case with me
then -- just touch-and-go for six weeks -- the physicians giving me
up and all that sort of thing. But, although I suffered much, I was a
thankful boy in the main. I was saved from being a "respectable
hardware and commission merchant, doing a capital bit of business,"
and I felt grateful to the protuberance which had been the means of
my salvation, as well as to the kindhearted female who had originally
put these means within my reach.
The most of boys run away from home at ten or twelve years of age,
but I waited till I was sixteen. I don't know that I should have gone
even then, if I had not happened to hear my old mother talk about
setting me up on my own hook in the grocery way. The grocery way! --
only think of that! I resolved to be off forthwith, and try and
establish myself in some decent occupation, without dancing
attendance any longer upon the caprices of these eccentric old
people, and running the risk of being made a genius of in the end. In
this project I succeeded perfectly well at the first effort, and by
the time I was fairly eighteen, found myself doing an extensive and
profitable business in the Tailor's Walking-Advertisement line.
I was enabled to discharge the onerous duties of this profession,
only by that rigid adherence to system which formed the leading
feature of my mind. A scrupulous method characterized my actions as
well as my accounts. In my case it was method -- not money -- which
made the man: at least all of him that was not made by the tailor
whom I served. At nine, every morning, I called upon that individual
for the clothes of the day. Ten o'clock found me in some fashionable
promenade or other place of public amusement. The precise regularity
with which I turned my handsome person about, so as to bring
successively into view every portion of the suit upon my back, was
the admiration of all the knowing men in the trade. Noon never passed
without my bringing home a customer to the house of my employers,
Messrs. Cut & Comeagain. I say this proudly, but with tears in my
eyes -- for the firm proved themselves the basest of ingrates. The
little account, about which we quarreled and finally parted, cannot,
in any item, be thought overcharged, by gentlemen really conversant
with the nature of the business. Upon this point, however, I feel a
degree of proud satisfaction in permitting the reader to judge for
himself. My bill ran thus:
Messrs. Cut & Comeagain, Merchant Tailors.
To Peter Proffit, Walking Advertiser, Drs.
JULY 10. -- to promenade, as usual and customer brought home... $00
25
JULY 11. -- To do do do 25
JULY 12. -- To one lie, second class; damaged black cloth sold for
invisible green............................................... 25
JULY 13. -- To one lie, first class, extra quality and size;
recommended milled satinet as broadcloth...................... 75
JULY 20. -- To purchasing bran new paper shirt collar or dickey, to
set off gray Petersham..................................... 02
AUG. 15. -- To wearing double-padded bobtail frock, (thermometer 106
in the shade)............................................. 25
AUG. 16. -- Standing on one leg three hours, to show off new-style
strapped pants at 12 1/2 cents per leg per hour............. 37 1/2
AUG. 17. -- To promenade, as usual, and large customer brought (fat
man)..................................................... 50
AUG. 18. -- To do do (medium size)................. 25
AUG. 19. -- To do do (small man and bad pay)....... 06
TOTAL [sic] $2 95 1/2
The item chiefly disputed in this bill was the very moderate charge
of two pennies for the dickey. Upon my word of honor, this was not an
unreasonable price for that dickey. It was one of the cleanest and
prettiest little dickeys I ever saw; and I have good reason to
believe that it effected the sale of three Petershams. The elder
partner of the firm, however, would allow me only one penny of the
charge, and took it upon himself to show in what manner four of the
same sized conveniences could be got out of a sheet of foolscap. But
it is needless to say that I stood upon the principle of the thing.
Business is business, and should be done in a business way. There was
no system whatever in swindling me out of a penny -- a clear fraud of
fifty per cent -- no method in any respect. I left at once the
employment of Messrs. Cut & Comeagain, and set up in the Eye-Sore
line by myself -- one of the most lucrative, respectable, and
independent of the ordinary occupations.
My strict integrity, economy, and rigorous business habits, here
again came into play. I found myself driving a flourishing trade, and
soon became a marked man upon 'Change. The truth is, I never dabbled
in flashy matters, but jogged on in the good old sober routine of the
calling -- a calling in which I should, no doubt, have remained to
the present hour, but for a little accident which happened to me in
the prosecution of one of the usual business operations of the
profession. Whenever a rich old hunks or prodigal heir or bankrupt
corporation gets into the notion of putting up a palace, there is no
such thing in the world as stopping either of them, and this every
intelligent person knows. The fact in question is indeed the basis of
the Eye-Sore trade. As soon, therefore, as a building-project is
fairly afoot by one of these parties, we merchants secure a nice
corner of the lot in contemplation, or a prime little situation just
adjoining, or tight in front. This done, we wait until the palace is
half-way up, and then we pay some tasty architect to run us up an
ornamental mud hovel, right against it; or a Down-East or Dutch
Pagoda, or a pig-sty, or an ingenious little bit of fancy work,
either Esquimau, Kickapoo, or Hottentot. Of course we can't afford to
take these structures down under a bonus of five hundred per cent
upon the prime cost of our lot and plaster. Can we? I ask the
question. I ask it of business men. It would be irrational to suppose
that we can. And yet there was a rascally corporation which asked me
to do this very thing -- this very thing! I did not reply to their
absurd proposition, of course; but I felt it a duty to go that same
night, and lamp-black the whole of their palace. For this the
unreasonable villains clapped me into jail; and the gentlemen of the
Eye-Sore trade could not well avoid cutting my connection when I came
out.
The Assault-and-Battery business, into which I was now forced to
adventure for a livelihood, was somewhat ill-adapted to the delicate
nature of my constitution; but I went to work in it with a good
heart, and found my account here, as heretofore, in those stern
habits of methodical accuracy which had been thumped into me by that
delightful old nurse -- I would indeed be the basest of men not to
remember her well in my will. By observing, as I say, the strictest
system i
n all my dealings, and keeping a well-regulated set of books,
I was enabled to get over many serious difficulties, and, in the end,
to establish myself very decently in the profession. The truth is,
that few individuals, in any line, did a snugger little business than
I. I will just copy a page or so out of my Day-Book; and this will
save me the necessity of blowing my own trumpet -- a contemptible
practice of which no high-minded man will be guilty. Now, the
Day-Book is a thing that don't lie.
"Jan. 1. -- New Year's Day. Met Snap in the street, groggy. Mem --
he'll do. Met Gruff shortly afterward, blind drunk. Mem -- he'll
answer, too. Entered both gentlemen in my Ledger, and opened a
running account with each.
"Jan. 2. -- Saw Snap at the Exchange, and went up and trod on his
toe. Doubled his fist and knocked me down. Good! -- got up again.
Some trifling difficulty with Bag, my attorney. I want the damages at
a thousand, but he says that for so simple a knock down we can't lay
them at more than five hundred. Mem -- must get rid of Bag -- no
system at all.
"Jan. 3 -- Went to the theatre, to look for Gruff. Saw him sitting in
a side box, in the second tier, between a fat lady and a lean one.
Quizzed the whole party through an opera-glass, till I saw the fat
lady blush and whisper to G. Went round, then, into the box, and put
my nose within reach of his hand. Wouldn't pull it -- no go. Blew it,
and tried again -- no go. Sat down then, and winked at the lean lady,
when I had the high satisfaction of finding him lift me up by the
nape of the neck, and fling me over into the pit. Neck dislocated,
and right leg capitally splintered. Went home in high glee, drank a
bottle of champagne, and booked the young man for five thousand. Bag
says it'll do.
"Feb. 15 -- Compromised the case of Mr. Snap. Amount entered in
Journal -- fifty cents -- which see.
"Feb. 16. -- Cast by that ruffian, Gruff, who made me a present of
five dollars. Costs of suit, four dollars and twenty-five cents. Nett
profit, -- see Journal,- seventy-five cents."
Now, here is a clear gain, in a very brief period, of no less than
one dollar and twenty-five cents -- this is in the mere cases of Snap
and Gruff; and I solemnly assure the reader that these extracts are
taken at random from my Day-Book.
It's an old saying, and a true one, however, that money is nothing in
comparison with health. I found the exactions of the profession
somewhat too much for my delicate state of body; and, discovering, at
last, that I was knocked all out of shape, so that I didn't know very
well what to make of the matter, and so that my friends, when they
met me in the street, couldn't tell that I was Peter Proffit at all,
it occurred to me that the best expedient I could adopt was to alter
my line of business. I turned my attention, therefore, to
Mud-Dabbling, and continued it for some years.
The worst of this occupation is, that too many people take a fancy to
it, and the competition is in consequence excessive. Every ignoramus
of a fellow who finds that he hasn't brains in sufficient quantity to
make his way as a walking advertiser, or an eye-sore prig, or a
salt-and-batter man, thinks, of course, that he'll answer very well
as a dabbler of mud. But there never was entertained a more erroneous
idea than that it requires no brains to mud-dabble. Especially, there
is nothing to be made in this way without method. I did only a retail
business myself, but my old habits of system carried me swimmingly
along. I selected my street-crossing, in the first place, with great
deliberation, and I never put down a broom in any part of the town
but that. I took care, too, to have a nice little puddle at hand,
which I could get at in a minute. By these means I got to be well
known as a man to be trusted; and this is one-half the battle, let me
tell you, in trade. Nobody ever failed to pitch me a copper, and got
over my crossing with a clean pair of pantaloons. And, as my business
habits, in this respect, were sufficiently understood, I never met
with any attempt at imposition. I wouldn't have put up with it, if I
had. Never imposing upon any one myself, I suffered no one to play
the possum with me. The frauds of the banks of course I couldn't
help. Their suspension put me to ruinous inconvenience. These,
however, are not individuals, but corporations; and corporations, it
is very well known, have neither bodies to be kicked nor souls to be
damned.
I was making money at this business when, in an evil moment, I was
induced to merge it in the Cur-Spattering -- a somewhat analogous,
but, by no means, so respectable a profession. My location, to be
sure, was an excellent one, being central, and I had capital blacking
and brushes. My little dog, too, was quite fat and up to all
varieties of snuff. He had been in the trade a long time, and, I may
say, understood it. Our general routine was this: -- Pompey, having
rolled himself well in the mud, sat upon end at the shop door, until
he observed a dandy approaching in bright boots. He then proceeded to
meet him, and gave the Wellingtons a rub or two with his wool. Then
the dandy swore very much, and looked about for a boot-black. There I
was, full in his view, with blacking and brushes. It was only a
minute's work, and then came a sixpence. This did moderately well for
a time; -- in fact, I was not avaricious, but my dog was. I allowed
him a third of the profit, but he was advised to insist upon half.
This I couldn't stand -- so we quarrelled and parted.
I next tried my hand at the Organ-Grinding for a while, and may say
that I made out pretty well. It is a plain, straightforward business,
and requires no particular abilities. You can get a music-mill for a
mere song, and to put it in order, you have but to open the works,
and give them three or four smart raps with a hammer. In improves the
tone of the thing, for business purposes, more than you can imagine.
This done, you have only to stroll along, with the mill on your back,
until you see tanbark in the street, and a knocker wrapped up in
buckskin. Then you stop and grind; looking as if you meant to stop
and grind till doomsday. Presently a window opens, and somebody
pitches you a sixpence, with a request to "Hush up and go on," etc. I
am aware that some grinders have actually afforded to "go on" for
Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe Page 137