"What do they do?"
"Oh, they work on the principle that the world owes them a living, and they are bound to have it."
"Of course they don't beg?"
At this Sam Pepper burst into a loud laugh.
"You're not so green as all that, Nelson."
"Well, what do they do then?" persisted the boy.
"Oh, a number of things! One runs a mail-order business. He is advertising two things just now. One is a steel engraving of Washington, indorsed by the government as a true picture of the first President, mounted on cardboard, all ready for framing, for fifty cents, and the other is a complete sewing machine for one dollar."
"How can he sell a sewing machine for a dollar?"
"When some fool sends on a dollar for the machine he sends him a needle, and when another fool sends fifty cents for the steel engraving he sends him a postage stamp picture of Washington stuck on a bit of cardboard."