"Perhaps not," says Peabody; "now if you'll just give me the full particulars of the man, his manners and customs, name and size, and sell me your accounts, at a low notch, I'll buy 'em; I'll collect 'em, too, if the feller's alive, out of jail, and any where around between sunrise and sunset!"
The publishers laughed at the idea, sensibly, but finding that Peabody was up for a trade, they traced out the accounts, &c., and for a five dollar bill, Mr. Peabody was put in possession of an account of some twenty odd dollars and cents against Dr. P. St. C. Smith.
Now Peabody had, some time previous to this transaction, established a peculiar kind of Telegraph, a human galvanic battery, or endless chain of them, extending all over the country, for collecting bad debts, and shocking fugitives, or stubborn creditors! By a continuation of faculties, causes and effects—shrewdness and forethought peculiar to a man capable of seeing considerably deep into millstones—Peabody couldn't be dodged. If he ever got his feelers on to a subject, the equivalent was bound to be turning up! It struck him that the collection of newspaper bills afforded him a great field for working his Telegraph, and he hasn't been mistaken.
The scene now changes; early one morning in the pleasant month of June, as the poet might say, Dr. Pendleton St. Clair Smith was to be seen before his toilet glass in the flourishing city of Syracuse,—giving the finishing stroke to his highly-cultivated beard. The satisfaction with which he made this demonstration, evinced the sereneness of his mind and the confidence with which he rested, in regard to his newspaper 'bills in Boston. But a tap is heard at his door, and at his invitation the servant comes in, announces a gentleman in the parlor, desirous of speaking to Dr. Smith. The Doctor waits upon the visitor—
"Dr. Pendleton St. Clair Smith, I presume?"
"Ye-e-s," slowly and suspiciously responded that individual.
"I am collector, sir," continued the stranger, "for the firm of Peabody, Grab, Catchem, and Co., Boston. I have a small (!) bill against you, sir, to collect."
"What for?" eagerly quoth the Doctor.
"Newspaper subscriptions and advertising, sir!"
"I a—I a, you a—well, you call in this evening," says the Doctor, tremulously fumbling in his pockets—"I'll settle with you; good morning."