unt. But all I know is how to sell ready-made clothes. I know very
little about cloth, and nothing about manufacturing or buying clothes.
If you will come with me and attend to that end of the business, I will
give you a two-fifths interest." That firm now imports its foreign
cloths direct, and its American goods are manufactured to its order.
Such are the stories of a few boys whom I know. They show how some boys
came to the city to seek employment and found it, and may serve to show
the way to others.
THE HORSE OF THE SHEIK OF THE MOUNTAIN OF SINGING SANDS.
With the money which they secured from the spoils of the Arab tribe,
Ducardanoy, the ventriloquist, and Bouchardy, the prestidigitateur,
purchased a fine vineyard at Nouvelle Saar-Louis. The story of the
manner in which they had acquired their money passed from mouth to mouth
among the European population, and at length the Arabs of the town heard
it, and repeated it to their brethren of the desert. At times the
ex-chiropodists saw strange Arabs loitering in the road before their
premises and regarding the house with careful scrutiny, but the garrison
was not far away and no acts of violence were committed. It was nearly a
year, however, before they ceased to have apprehensions of poniard
thrusts in the back or of awaking to find their house in flames.
"It is plain," said Ducardanoy, as they were celebrating the anniversary
of their arrival at Nouvelle Saar-Louis by a dinner to their friends,
"that those fellows regard us as magicians of great power, else they
would have sought revenge before this."
"I don't know about that," said Bouchardy. "Everybody here is well
acquainted with our story, and I'll wager that the frightened tribesmen
themselves now know that there was nothing supernatural in the
entertainment to which we treated them. It is the proximity of the
garrison that has prevented them from taking a revenge."
"I would like another encounter with the fellows in trade or in battle,"
said Ducardanoy. "There would be money in it, there would be money in
it." And as if in answer to his wish, there was ushered in an Arab
mulatto of the giant stature that characterizes the cross of the Arab
and negro. He was a messenger from the Sheik of the Mountain of Singing
Sands, he said, and had come to request the professional services of the
two gentlemen in the case of the Sheik's horse Sunlight, who was
grievously afflicted with a corn on his right f
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