Twenty years a fakir

by S. James Weldon

Having jollied the people into a good humor by something like the foregoing, I would come down to the serious business of selling my pipes and raffling off the watches which went with them.

I made a long talk on the watches, telling of the various processes they underwent before they could be called perfect timepieces—of the delicate hairspring, and the tiny, intricate mechanism enclosed in the case. Before I got through, it was safe to say that every man in the crowd wanted a watch for his wife or daughter, mother or sister, to say nothing of his best girl, if he had one. The pipes spoke for themselves, but my little oration included a fair description of their merits, and I usually had little difficulty in disposing of the dozen of them allotted to any particular evening, and I might add that both sides were well satisfied. The pipes were very good while they lasted, and the watch went like a daisy—as long as the wheels turned round. I made good money out of the invoice, and in after days handled the same line of goods more than once.

I am sorry to say, the doctor was something of a beat. Though he always treated me fairly enough, all the rest of mankind seemed to be considered his legitimate game, while the plunder of a landlord was his special delight. He had capital enough at his command, but it appeared to me that he would sooner save fifty cents off his hotel bill than to make five dollars selling medicine,

To tell the truth, I had not much sympathy with the average country landlord, and was not strongly averse to working him myself. He feeds his local trade for twenty-five cents per meal, and when an outsider calls charges him fifty cents or a dollar for the same thing. You can safely conclude that however much a tale of woe may induce him to scale his prices, he is still making a living profit.

When we arrived at a hotel the doctor would ask for the tariff sheet. If he was told it was two dollars a day he would state that he was no commercial drummer, working on salary with expenses allowed, but just an ordinary vendor on his own account, who, in these hard times, found that to make both ends meet was a pretty tough proposition. Furthermore, that he was paying his own way, and couldn’t stand the two dollars.

As a result he would sometimes get rates as low as one dollar a day, for each of us.

When we were ready to go, the doctor would ask for his bill, and then tell Mr. Landlord that business had been bad, that he had been obliged to pay a C.O.D. express bill, and that being about “flat broke” he did not see how he was to pay his account unless the landlord agreed to take it out in medicine at wholesale prices.

Of course, there would be a kick, and he would go on with another proposition.

“I’ll tell you what I can do, Mr. Landlord. I’ve got with me over thirty dollars worth of silverware that I was going to deliver to a lady in the next town. She ordered it from me the last time I was along. As I put up the money for it, I guess it’s still mine to do what I want with, and if you’ll take that and call it square, you can have it.”

The landlord would be a little interested at that, and the doctor would show him the silverware. Once get the man to looking at it, the rest followed. It made a good showing, and the doctor talked so artistically about the price, quality, etc., that the deal would almost invariably be closed. What that silverware cost it is unnecessary to say, but he always made a fair profit out of the operation. He even sometimes wound up by selling for cash some silver polish or insect exterminator. He always had a full line to catch the landlords, even if other things ran short, I took note of these things and never forgot them. When traveling exclusively on my own account I used the same dodge, or some other closely akin to it.