What a phrenologist said--A reconciliation--Breaking
steers--Mysterious disappearance of a new fence--My confession--My trip
to New York--The transformation scene--My return home with my fiddle.

CHAPTER II.

My mother wishes me to learn a trade--My burning desire to be a
live-stock dealer--Employed by a deaf drover to do his hearing--How I
amused myself at his expense and misfortune.

CHAPTER III.

Selling and trading off my flock of sheep--Co-partnership formed with a
neighbor boy--Our dissolution--My continuance in business--Collapse of a
chicken deal--Destruction of a wagon load of eggs--Arrested and fined my
last dollar--Arrived home "broke."

CHAPTER IV.

Borrowing money from Mr. Keefer--Buying and selling sheep pelts--How I
succeeded--A co-partnership in the restaurant business--Buying out my
partner--Collapsed--More help from Mr. Keefer--Horses and Patent rights.

CHAPTER V.

Swindled out of a horse and watch--More help from Mr. Keefer--How I got
even in the watch trade--My patent right trip to Michigan and
Indiana--Its results--How a would-be sharper got come up with.

CHAPTER VI.

My new acquaintance and our co-partnership--Three weeks' experience
manufacturing soap--The collapse--How it happened--Broke again--More
help from Mr. Keefer--A trip to Indiana--Selling prize soap with a
circus--Arrested and fined for conducting a gift enterprise--Broke
again.

CHAPTER VII.

Eleven days on a farm--How I fooled the farmer--Arrived at
Chicago--Running a fruit stand--Collapsed--My return home--Broke
again--A lucky trade.

CHAPTER VIII.

Three dollars well invested--Learning telegraphy--Getting in debt--A
full-fledged operator--My first telegraph office--Buying and selling
ducks and frogs while employed as operator--My
resignation--Co-partnership in the jewelry and spectacle business--How
we succeeded--Our dissolution.

CHAPTER IX.

Continuing the jewelry and spectacle business alone--Trading a watch
chain for a horse--Peddling on horseback--Trading jewelry for a harness
and buggy--Selling at wholesale--Retiring from the jewelry business.

CHAPTER X.

Great success as an insurance agent--Sold out--Arrived at
Chicago--Selling government goods--Acquiring dissipated habits--Engaged
to be married--Broke among strangers--How I made a raise--My arrival
home.

CHAPTER XI.

More help from Mr. Keefer--Off to see my girl--Embarked in the
Agricultural-implement business without capi