TWENTY YEARS A FAKIR.
INTRODUCTION.
The old adage, “An open confession is good for the soul,” has no bearing on my case. I did not write this book to ease my conscience; but of my own free will, for my own amusement—and for yours, too, I trust. I am going to tell you how I made my money.
I will acknowledge in the outset that I was a fakir of the fakirs, a Simon-pure article. Today I occasionally run across an old acquaintance, who greets me with an admonishing grin, and the apostrophe, “Look at the airs he puts on now; and I can remember when he hadn’t two dimes to rub together.”
Yes, my friend, your memory serves you right, but now I have my compensations. I can take my ease among the luxuries of a comfortable home; I can lean back on the cushions of a brougham, as neat a turnout as you will see on the Central Park drive; I can occupy a box at the opera, or finger my bank-book, in which the figures are comfortable, and the balance on the right side.
It was ambition for wealth which drove me out in the world, to look about and hustle; and I acknowledge freely that hustle I did, in the fullest sense of the term.
What have I done?