At the end of two hours he packed up his wares, Walter took a seat beside him, and they started for the next village.
“You had a pretty good sale, professor,” said Walter.
“Yes; as well as I can calculate I took in about ten dollars.”
Walter reflected with pleasure that his commission would amount to a dollar.
The professor had another way of utilizing remedies. When he put up for the night at a hotel, he usually succeeded in paying a part of his hotel bill in medicine or toilet articles. As his average profits on the former were seventy per cent., and on the latter forty, it may be seen that this was greatly to his advantage. Walter did not wonder that he had already accumulated a small competence.
On the fourth evening, as Walter was leaving the supper-table, a tall young man, looking something like the stock pictures of Uncle Sam, came up to him.
“Say, young fellow,” he commenced, “some of us young people are going to have a dance at the schoolhouse hall, but we haven't got no fiddler. Peter Jackson, who generally plays for us, has got the lumbago and can't play. What'll you charge?”
“What do you generally pay Mr. Jackson?” asked Walter.
“Three dollars an evening.”
“Do you think I can play as well as he?”