Twenty years a fakir

by S. James Weldon

A little receipt for mixing gold paint did fairly well. At one time I sold candy as an anti-coal oil explosive, getting five cents for three small pieces. When you are in hard luck and away from home it don’t pay to be too particular, and everything was fish that came into my net. Handle coal oil the way I told ‘em and there would never be any explosion, anyway.

One day while making my rounds with my anti-explosives I dropped into a shoe shop and found the cobbler to be a little, dried-up, sickly old man, who was afflicted with some nervous ailment which kept him from sleeping. In telling me his tale of woe he mentioned the fact that he had not slept any for three nights. I told him, sympathizingly, that I was once troubled in the same way, but was now entirely cured. I further stated that I had a bottle of medicine, and if he wanted it he could have it at just what it cost me, as I had not needed it for several years. Though he would not go to a doctor he was only too glad to get from me something which promised relief. I told him I would just slip around to the hotel and get the bottle; and leaving him went to a druggist, who put me up a sleeping draught, for which he charged me seventy cents. My friend, the cobbler, paid me one dollar, and the next day delightfully told me had just had the best night’s rest he had known for years.

In this way I went on, and it was on this trip that I struck a town in a temperance, or “Maine law,” state where the county fair was in progress.

I bought a permit to sell temperance drinks on the grounds, for I had found where I could buy a lot of empty beer and whisky bottles. I had a stall or pen for my use, and placing four wash-tubs almost filled with ice in the darkest corner, where they could scarcely be seen, I loaded my bottles with good, strong, cold tea and packed them on ice. In front I had a small stock of pop and some real, red circus lemonade. There is a fortune in the latter itself, if you can only sell enough of it.

In temperance towns, when you walk into a drug store and call for “cold tea,” the clerk knows what you mean and winks when he hands you the liquor. When I began to yell, “Right this way, gentlemen, for your cold tea; and here you have your ice cold lemonade. Here you have your California pop, and the coldest tea you ever tackled.” The crowd flocked around, and I did a land office business.

Of course, as soon as a man tasted his tea he tumbled to the racket; but as it was a good joke he would smile to himself and not give it away. If some unsuspecting stranger would walk up and call for beer I would tell him, with a wink, “We don’t keep beer nor whiskey, but I have some lemonade and awfully nice ‘cold tea.’ He would tumble, as he supposed, and take cold tea in his’n, stick the bottle in his hip pocket, and walk off with a smile on his face as big as a Kansas City ham. I sold the beer bottles at twenty-five cents each and the whiskey bottles (pints) at fifty. I am afraid to say how much were my profits. You can guess.

Though I may seem to have been successful in my schemes—and I was—yet they were small ones, parts of the country I was in were poor, and when I had worked around to a broader field I was still short of capital, and undecided about settling down on any particular line. I believe I was at my lowest ebb for about a year, in which I worked all sorts of things. I traveled as a renovator, cleaning clothing, hats and garments when I had to, but preferring to sell the liquid which did the work. I gave away little packages of medicine, and sold with them a book for twenty-five cents, which was supposed to be a treatise on the anatomy of man. At one time I was a professional carpet cleaner, who guaranteed to clean a carpet without pain and remove grease while the customer waited. I used to clean a spot by way of sample, and then sell the stuff to do the rest. I had a furniture polish which was handled on the same plan. I sold rugs by installments, and was the originator of the scheme of selling watches on the street, the price payable by installments. I worked about three months at that, going backward and forward to make my collections, and finding it paid fairly well. Then there was the cologne and perfumery fake. The articles were done up in fancy packages, in which was enclosed a circular. These were distributed from door to door, and so well was the circular worded that on calling the next day for the money or package it was generally the money. The price was seventy-five cents a package, or one dollar and a quarter for two.

There was the advertising directory scheme, which could be handled without much danger of failure if you could find a field which had not been occupied. Every one wants a directory of the city and county if it can be had at a reasonable price, and advertisers will take space enough to make good profit. There were plenty of things for a bustling man to turn his attention to, and as my health became re-established more firmly, my head began to rise above water.

One day I figured up my cash and found I had more than one hundred dollars, and decided to send for a stock of goods.

I always was successful at street selling, and though I made the bulk of my money in other lines, at this particular time my preference lay in that direction. There was something fascinating in gathering a crowd; to change its cold, marble stare into one of eager expectancy; to warm it up to the highest pitch, and bring the coin rolling in through the power of my own magnetic eloquence.