CHAPTER XIII.
Working the Saloon Keeper for an Extra Five—Alone Again—Arrested—Fighting the License—Sick—The Insurance Scheme—The Wheel and Cigar Dodge—The Stage Hold-Up—The Horse Doctor and Cholera—Cigars Two for a Nickel—Making a Preacher Swear.
Things went along apparently prosperous for some months, until the time to form engagements for the fall and winter came around, when my best people asked for a raise in salary.
At first I was inclined to grant it, for I liked the business, and, on the face of things, I ought to make a fortune.
But the briefest reflection told me that I would be entering on a new campaign, and like a wise and noble general I ought to sit down and figure out the cost.
After that, though it took time, it was not hard to come to a conclusion. I had been doing a thriving business, but I had the field all to myself, with very little opposition from regular exhibitions. The season was coming when the people in the towns which I would care to work might have a surfeit of amusement.
I discovered, also, that if my receipts had been large, so also had been my expenditures. I went on, figured out the profit, cost and loss and decided to quit right then.
While apparently doing a business that should have yielded a large surplus, my expenses were already so great that I was actually making less money than when traveling alone, while a few weeks of poor business, such as were liable at any moment to occur, would put me decidedly in the hole. I paid off all salaries to the end of the month, closed up my affairs, disbanded my company, and once more hit the road, solitary and alone.