" the stranger protested; "I
know very well that agents are trying, and dames tired of buying; but
be not uneasy--I've nothing to sell."

"I'm used to that story--it's whiskered and hoary," replied Mrs.
Granger, "you want to come in, and then when you enter, in tones of a
Stentor you'll brag of your polish for silver and tin. Or maybe you're
dealing in unguents healing, or dye for the whiskers, or salve for the
corns, or something that quickens egg-laying in chickens, or knobs for
the cattle to wear on their horns. It's no use your talking, you'd
better be walking, and let me go on with my housework, I think; you
look dissipated, if truth must be stated, and if you had money you'd
spend it for drink."

"My name," said the stranger, who backed out of danger--the woman had
reached for the broom by the wall--"is Septimus Beecher; I am the new
preacher; I just dropped around for a pastoral call."

GOOD AND BAD TIMES

"Times are so bad I have the blues," says Bilderbeck, who deals in
shoes. "All day I loaf around my store, and folks don't come here any
more; I reckon they have barely cash to buy cigars and corn beef hash,
and when they've bought the grub to eat, they can't afford to clothe
their feet.

"There's something wrong when trade's thus pinched," says he, "and
someone should be lynched. The cost of living is so high that it's
economy to die; and death is so expensive, then, that corpses want to
live again. The trusts have robbed us left and right, and there's no
remedy in sight; the government is out of plumb and should be knocked
to Kingdom Come."

And Ganderson, across the street, is selling furniture for feet. "All
day he hands out boots and shoes with cheerful cockadoodledoos. I have
no reason to complain," says Ganderson; all kicks are vain; my
customers don't come to hear me raising thunder by the year.

"They have some troubles of their own, and do not care to hear me
groan. And so I beam around my place, and wear a smile that splits my
face, and gather in the shining dime--trade's getting better all the
time!"

Though days be dark and trade be tough, it's always well to make a
bluff, to face the world with cheerful eye, as though the goose were
hanging high. No merchant ever made a friend by dire complainings
without end. And people never seek a store to hear a grouchy merchant
roar; they'll patronize the wiser gent who doesn't air his discontent.

BUCCANEERS

(The Pirate o