“But you can’t keep on through the winter, can you?” I asked, thinking the question would be apt to draw him out and increase my store of knowledge.
“The work goes on, but it is of a different kind. But, as I was going to say, I will stay out a little longer, for the sake of your education; and you will learn that a person in our line of business is not dependent on capital, whether in the shape of money or goods. His brains must be his mainstay and dependence, and the more he knows in the way of general education the better it will be for him. You have a great deal to learn, and if you want to be a success in the field to which you seem to have been called you won’t have an idle moment you can call your own. For the remainder of the week I shall proceed to boom and advertise a town. There is good money in it, although it is not every one who is fitted to work the racket. It takes a man of not only good knowledge of human nature, but of wide experience and considerable journalistic ability.”
Accordingly, the next day we set off for the town he had selected, and which he assured me had not been worked after the fashion he proposed.
B——. was a thriving little city of three or four thousand inhabitants, which had several newspapers that were fairly well supported. The history of this place Dr. Carter already had at his finger ends, and the names of the prominent citizens were more than familiar. He had already looked the ground over, or had it looked over, I was not certain which. This saved him some little time, though I believe he could have gone in, a perfect stranger to every soul, and still met with as thorough a success. I have done it myself more than once when no more promising field of operations appeared to be open.
Our first business call was upon the editor whom Carter had chosen as his local helper.
He introduced himself as Dr. Carter, of the Eastern Globe, out to write up the country and its resources for his paper, but meantime with an eye open for the profit of himself and friend. To describe his scheme briefly, he proposed to the editor, who was also proprietor, to get out a special number of the Daily Hornet, in which should be given a write-up of the city and its business men, the doctor to do the soliciting and literary work, and receive his end of the profits.
Country editors are always susceptible to the word profits, since, with few exceptions, I have found them seriously affected with shortness of cash, and ready to turn an honest dollar at any hour of the day or night.
Mr. Mathews, of the Hornet, was no exception. After the doctor (or professor, whichever you choose to call him) had held him under fire of his verbal battery a short time he made unconditional capitulation, and started out with us to make introductions, gather materials, and prepare the way for contracts.
A few moments’ observation convinced me that the editor was as great a fakir as ourselves, even though he did not wear the badge on his sleeve.
He introduced Mr. Carter, of the East, as of the editorial staff, detailed to make observations through the state with a view to a writing up of its most promising and prominent business men and institutions.