CHAPTER XXV.
The last day on the road must always seem a long day. One figures out just what train he will take, the hour he will arrive at the end of the journey, and the minute he will be with his family or in the store. I had reached my last day and was putting in my “best licks” so as to have a good batch of orders to carry in with me, to make my welcome all the greater. But as luck would have it no day of my trip had been so uncertain and tantalizing.
I spread out my revolvers before four concerns and enlarged upon their remarkable qualities and low prices. “Bulldogs” had stiffened in price at the factories to $2.25, less 10 per cent., and our stock was large and bought at low prices. I used this as a bait wherever I could, but every other man had been throwing out offers of the same kind, and mine were not so greedily taken as I would like to have had them.
“No use of your offering baits,” said one party “there's no life in the gun business any more. Here's Lafoucheaux guns at $7, Flobert rifles at $2, Smith & Wesson revolvers at $8, and the deuce knows where it will stop. Things must be mighty dubious when S. & W. have to cut their prices. Here's Reachum's last billet doux on rifles, quoting them at about 5 per cent, above cost, and yet you expect me to give you an order. No, it's no use; I must wait till somebody wants to buy something that I have.”
“Do you say that about all your lines?”
“Well, it's mighty near it in everything. Here's an order from my man on the Central for a quarter dozen steel squares at 75 and 10 off; cost me that a month ago. Here's strap hinges at 65 and 5 off; I paid that for them. There's a milk-strainer, sold at $1.25 per dozen, cost me $1.20; carpet tacks sold at $1.50 gross, cost me $1.44. All these things in one bill. I tell you I am getting rich fast.”
“I am going in to-night,” I said, “and would be glad to carry in a little order for you. I'll get it out myself and see that nice goods are sent you.”
“No, I don't want anything.”