y did the business increase. The supply of materials needed was
ample and of the very best quality, for Mr. Chickering never allowed an
inferior article to be used. The warerooms were large and handsomely
fitted up, and were filled with instruments ranging in price from a
thousand dollars downward. It was generally believed that while Mr.
Chickering's genius had created the demand for the pianos, it was
Captain Mackay's business knowledge and experience that had placed
affairs on their present footing, and when Mr. Chickering proposed to
buy Captain Mackay's interest from his heirs, which was valued at
several hundred thousand dollars, there was a very general belief, which
found expression, that he was incurring certain ruin. The condition of
the sale was that the purchase-money should be divided into
installments, for each of which Mr. Chickering should give his note,
secured by a mortgage on the premises. At Mr. Chickering's request each
note was made payable "on or before" a given day. The lawyer who
conducted the transaction smiled skeptically as he inserted this clause,
and asked the purchaser if he _ever_ expected to pay the notes at all.

"If I did not expect to pay them promptly, I should not give them," was
the simple reply. He was as good as his word. The notes were met
promptly, and although Captain Mackay's family requested that they might
stand as an investment for them, Mr. Chickering took up the last one at
its maturity.

With the business in his own hands, Mr. Chickering continued its
operations, displaying an ease in his mercantile transactions which
astonished and delighted his friends. The business prospered to a
greater degree than before, and all the while Mr. Chickering continued
his labors for the improvement of his instruments with still greater
success than in former years. His pianos were universally regarded as
the best in the market, and his competitors were unable to excel him.
Although conducting a business which required the constant exercise of
the highest mercantile talent, he did not relax his energy in the
mechanical department. To the end of his life, long after he had become
a wealthy and prominent man, he had his own little working-cabinet, with
an exquisite set of tools, with which he himself put the finishing touch
to each of his splendid instruments, a touch he would not intrust to any
other hands.

His competitors did all in their power to equal him, but he distanced
them al