Both Matt and Andy began to smell a mouse, as the saying is, and they lost no time in questioning not only the German, but several other people that remained around the wagon.
The young auctioneers soon learned that a rival party of auctioneers with a large two-horse wagon had stopped at the town during the entire previous week, and sold goods which were next to worthless, for the highest prices to be obtained. They had been cool and shrewd men, thoroughly dishonest, and they had swindled every one who had had dealings with them.
“And where did they go to?” asked Andy, of the German, after the matter had been talked over for some time.
“Ve ton’t know. Of ve did ve vould tar an’ fedder dem, py chiminy!” was the emphatic reply.
“That settles it, we won’t be able to do any business here,” said Matt, and though they remained in 239 Bethlehem the remainder of that day and all of the next, his words proved true. Only a few trifles were sold, and these at prices that did not reimburse them for the trouble of handling.
Seeing that it would not pay to remain in the town longer, they started once more on the road, and by the end of the week found themselves established in a store in Allentown, and doing quite a good business.
While in this city Andy made a trip to Philadelphia, and had several more cases of goods shipped on, which Matt was careful to procure before they might be stolen from the freight depot. The wagon was also sent to a repair shop and thoroughly overhauled, for the roads beyond Allentown promised to be rougher than those heretofore traversed.
Both Matt and Andy were curious to know more about the rival auctioneers, and they wondered if they would meet the men. Nothing had been heard of them in Allentown, so that their business in that city was not injured. They did fairly well, although a strike in some of the mills made business duller than it would otherwise have been.
But both of the partners thought they had no cause for complaint. During the time they had been away from home they had cleared, above all expenses, one hundred and seventy-two dollars, 240 which, equally divided, was eighty-six dollars apiece—not a fortune, but still an amount which Matt at least viewed with considerable satisfaction.
“If we do as well right straight through,” he said, as he and Andy talked it over on their way to Lehighton and Mauch Chunk, “we will have quite an amount to place to our credit in the bank by the time we reach New York again.”