I then made known to him my anxiety to open an office in Chicago, and buy direct. He said he could and would help me to do so, and offered me desk room in his office till I could afford to rent a room of my own.
The following month I visited the city and called on him, and he gave me a letter of recommendation to the eastern manufacturers. I also procured letters from several others, with whom I had had either a business or social acquaintance, and started for New York, where the manufacturers all had representatives.
On my way there I stopped at Bronson, Michigan, and at Clyde, Ohio, and paid all of my old debts, with eight per cent. per annum interest for the whole time I had owed them. I paid one man two hundred and nine dollars for a note of one hundred and forty dollars, and another man one hundred and seventy-five dollars for a note of one hundred and twenty-two; and still another ninety dollars for a note of fifty, besides various open accounts for merchandise bought, and for borrowed money; in all amounting to nearly one thousand dollars.
One gentleman I called on had almost forgotten me as well as the debt I owed him, and when I said:
"I believe you have an account against me," he looked up over his spectacles and remarked, as though he considered me foolish to refer to it:
"Yes, but it has been outlawed for some time."
"Did the law balance your books?" I asked.
"No sir, but it canceled the debt."
"Indeed it did not, so far as I am concerned; and for once I'll prove myself more powerful than the law by balancing up your books, which is something it can't or at least won't do."