My previous training in going hungry for days came in handy at
last. In the interests of commerce, I let my dinners go. So I was
enabled to make a final dash to Erie, where I planted my last batch
of tables before I went home, happy.
I got home in time to assist in the winding up of the concern. The
iron-clad contracts had done the business. My customers would not
listen to explanations. When told that the price of those tables
was lower than the cost of working up the wood, they replied that
it was none of their business. They had their contracts. The
Allegheny man threatened suit, if I remember rightly, and the firm
gave up. Nobody blamed me, for I had sold according to orders; but
instead of $450 which I had figured out as my commission, I got
seventy-five cents. It was half of what my employer had. He divided
squarely, and I could not in reason complain.
I sat in the restaurant where he had explained the situation to me,
and tried to telescope my ambitions down to the seventy-five-cent
standard, when my eyes fell upon a copy of _Harper's Weekly_ that
lay on the table.
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