ome at ten or twelve years of age, but
I waited till I was sixteen. I don't know that I should have gone even
then, if I had not happened to hear my old mother talk about setting me
up on my own hook in the grocery way. The grocery way!--only think of
that! I resolved to be off forthwith, and try and establish myself in
some decent occupation, without dancing attendance any longer upon the
caprices of these eccentric old people, and running the risk of being
made a genius of in the end. In this project I succeeded perfectly well
at the first effort, and by the time I was fairly eighteen, found
myself doing an extensive and profitable business in the Tailor's
Walking-Advertisement line.

I was enabled to discharge the onerous duties of this profession, only
by that rigid adherence to system which formed the leading feature of
my mind. A scrupulous method characterized my actions as well as my
accounts. In my case it was method--not money--which made the man: at
least all of him that was not made by the tailor whom I served. At nine,
every morning, I called upon that individual for the clothes of the day.
Ten o'clock found me in some fashionable promenade or other place of
public amusement. The precise regularity with which I turned my handsome
person about, so as to bring successively into view every portion of
the suit upon my back, was the admiration of all the knowing men in
the trade. Noon never passed without my bringing home a customer to the
house of my employers, Messrs. Cut & Comeagain. I say this proudly,
but with tears in my eyes--for the firm proved themselves the basest
of ingrates. The little account, about which we quarreled and finally
parted, cannot, in any item, be thought overcharged, by gentlemen really
conversant with the nature of the business. Upon this point, however,
I feel a degree of proud satisfaction in permitting the reader to judge
for himself. My bill ran thus:

Messrs. Cut & Comeagain, Merchant Tailors.
To Peter Proffit, Walking Advertiser, Drs.
JULY 10.--to promenade, as usual and customer brought home... $00
25
JULY 11.--To do do do 25
JULY 12.--To one lie, second class; damaged black cloth sold for
invisible green............................................... 25

JULY 13.--To one lie, first class, extra quality and size;
recommended milled satinet as broadcloth...................... 75

JULY 20.--To purchasing bran new paper shirt collar or dickey, to
set o