f Boston and the environs, for fields more congenial to his
peculiar talents. He _stuck_ the printer, of course. His numerous
subscription accounts to the various local news and literary journals,
in the aggregate amounted to quite considerable; and the printers didn't
begin to like it! Now, it takes a Yankee to head off a Yankee, and about
this time a live, double-grand-action Yankee, named Peabody, possibly,
happened in at one of the offices, where two brother publishers were
"making a few remarks" over delinquent subscribers, and especially were
they wrought up against and giving jessy to Dr. Pendleton St. Clair
Smith!

"How much does the feller owe you?" quoth Peabody.

"Owe? More than he'll ever pay during the present generation."

"Perhaps not," says Peabody; "now if you'll just give me the full
particulars of the man, his manners and customs, name and size, and
sell me your accounts, at a low notch, I'll buy 'em; I'll collect 'em,
too, if the feller's alive, out of jail, and any where around between
sunrise and sunset!"

The publishers laughed at the idea, sensibly, but finding that Peabody
was up for a trade, they traced out the accounts, &c., and for a five
dollar bill, Mr. Peabody was put in possession of an account of some
twenty odd dollars and cents against Dr. P. St. C. Smith.

Now Peabody had, some time previous to this transaction, established a
peculiar kind of Telegraph, a human galvanic battery, or endless chain
of them, extending all over the country, for collecting bad debts, and
_shocking_ fugitives, or stubborn creditors! By a continuation of
faculties, causes and effects--shrewdness and forethought peculiar to a
man capable of seeing considerably deep into millstones--Peabody
couldn't be _dodged_. If he ever got his _feelers_ on to a subject, the
_equivalent_ was bound to be turning up! It struck him that the
collection of newspaper bills afforded him a great field for working his
Telegraph, and he hasn't been mistaken.

The scene now changes; early one morning in the pleasant month of June,
as the poet might say, Dr. Pendleton St. Clair Smith was to be seen
before his toilet glass in the flourishing city of Syracuse,--giving the
finishing stroke to his highly-cultivated beard. The satisfaction with
which he made this demonstration, evinced the sereneness of his mind and
the _confidence_ with which he rested, in regard to his newspaper 'bills
in Boston. But a _tap_ is heard at his door, and