“A trunk and a bank account are both evidences of responsibility, even if the one is empty and the other is small. If you can’t conquer both, carry a trunk, anyhow.
“A few good names at the top of a list brings Tom, Dick and Harry at the tail; but if you begin with Tom, Dick and Harry, the list will be all tail, and a short one at that.
“There’s a fortune in a new fake, but it won’t work in the same community twice; and two of a kind coming close together make a bad pair.
“If, when you are hard up, you think of a scheme which seems likely, try it. You have nothing to lose and everything to win. If you waste time trying to decide, or to think of something better, the golden moment may slip by.”
Such maxims he poured forth for my future guidance. He then told me he was going to Chicago to prepare for the further work, asked me to keep him advised where a letter would reach me, and promising to post me in regard to any novelties in the market. After some other talk about our hopes and intentions he left me. It was long before I saw him again.
I confess I felt a trifle lonely, and at a loss what to do with myself. I had plenty of money for present needs, and a little capital with which I could purchase a small stock of something to sell; but I did not at the moment know what I wanted or which way to turn, and the doctor had offered no suggestions. It was an understood matter that I was to at least try to hoe my own row.
I lounged down to the station, and while staring aimlessly after a departing train was surprised to hear my own name called and have some one slap me on the back.
I looked around quickly, and lo, it was my old friend, the lightning rod man.
We shook hands heartily, while I expressed my surprise at seeing him, and curiosity to know how he came to be here, when I supposed he was at Davenport, and hardly able to hobble out of the hospital.
He explained it in short order. The broken bones had knit very nicely and rapidly. He was now on his way to a neighboring city to look after a small stock of goods for which, some six months before, he had traded a patent right. The goods were not worth much, but neither was the patent, and he thought that by taking them out of storage he could realize expenses and enough to keep him afloat until he was entirely ready once more for business.