oon terminate.

"I shall live a good deal longer than you doctors think for," replied
Adams, doggedly; and then, seeming after all to realize the truth of the
Doctor's assertion, he turned to me and said: "Well, Mr. B., you must
buy me out." He named his price for his half of the "show," and I
accepted his offer. We had arranged to exhibit the bears in Connecticut
and Massachusetts during the summer, in connection with a circus, and
Adams insisted that I should hire him to travel for the summer, and
exhibit the bears in their curious performances. He offered to go for
$60 per week and traveling expenses of himself and wife.

I replied that I would gladly engage him as long as he could stand it,
but I advised him to give up business and go to his home in
Massachusetts; "for," I remarked, "you are growing weaker every day, and
at best cannot stand it more than a fortnight."

"What will you give me extra if I will travel and exhibit the bears
every day for ten weeks?" asked old Adams, eagerly.

"Five hundred dollars," I replied, with a laugh.

"Done!" exclaimed Adams. "I will do it; so draw up an agreement to that
effect at once. But mind you, draw it payable to my wife, for I may be
too weak to attend to business after the ten weeks are up, and if I
perform my part of the contract, I want her to get the $500 without any
trouble."

I drew up a contract to pay him $60 per week for his services, and if he
continued to exhibit the bears for ten consecutive weeks I was then to
hand him, or his wife $500 extra.

"You have lost your $500!" exclaimed Adams on taking the contract; "for
I am bound to live and earn it."

"I hope you may, with all my heart, and a hundred years more if you
desire it," I replied.

"Call me a fool if I don't earn the $500!" exclaimed Adams, with a
triumphant laugh.

The "show" started off in a few days, and at the end of a fortnight I
met it at Hartford, Connecticut.

"Well," says I, "Adams, you seem to stand it pretty well. I hope you and
your wife are comfortable?"

"Yes," he replied, with a laugh; "and you may as well try to be
comfortable too, for your $500 is a goner."

"All right," I replied; "I hope you will grow better every day."

But I saw by his pale face, and other indications, that he was rapidly
failing.

In three weeks more, I met him again at New Bedford, Mass. It seemed to
me, then, that he could not live a week, for his eyes were glassy and
his hands trembled, but h