turned speculator myself. And money! 0 my, cords of it! Wonderful! Talk about California, it was nothing to Oil City and that region in '65 and '67. Money, barrels full of it; and I knew how to get it, but not how to keep it. I lived like a prince, and we made things fly.

Would to God I had that money now to put in my Master's cause! But it is gone, and all other things we then had are gone away from us. For God says: "If we come unto him, he will put away our sins as far as the east is from the west." (Psa. ciii.)

Next I took up one of my old trades, one I have not yet mentioned. It was faking, or street peddling; and I was called one of the best, because, they said, my tongue was hung in the middle, and I never got tired of talking, drinking, or fighting. I went from city to city, and finally brought up at Cincinnati. I was selling a can-openerthe first in the market, and they sold as fast as I could make change. I sold out of an open carriage, the harness on the horses being covered over with tin cans, all cut up with the knife I was selling. This exhibition attracted great attention.

About now, however, the devil told me I must do something, so as to get into another scrape. It was election time, and I thought it would be smart for me to swear in my vote, and help the Democratic party win.

The devil thought so too, and as we both agreed, I did it, and got the "collar" for it; had to lie in jail about a month before I was tried, and then I got another month without a fine.

Here, let me say, I learned something of the frisky little bed-bug. I used to watch them and see how they worked. They are about as smart and scheming as the smartest saloon-keeper on earth. If they failed to do a thing the first time, they tried it again and again, until they made it out. It put me in mind of a story my mother used to tell me, when I was a little boy, about a good king somewhere, who had to hide in a cave or something, because his people were so wicked and wanted to kill him. Now, this good king had tried lots of ways to make his people do right, but always made a failure; and here he was in the cave, almost ready to die, because he was discouraged. After a while he saw a spider try to swing himself off from the

wall to another wall; but he failed to reach it. He crawled back and tried again; failed again. He did this a good many times, and after a while he got there. Then my mother told me how the king said to himself that he would n't give it up till he had tried as many times as the spider did; so he went out of the cave, and finally gained the victory.

Now, the spider is smart; so is the saloonkeeper; he generally gets there. What he do n't know about getting a poor man's money and blood is not worth knowing. I would not trust him any sooner than I would a bed-bug. They are both after blood.

After I had served my time and got out, I left the city for good. They could not appreciate my patriotism in offering myself up on the altar of my country. It does not do to appreciate these things after the election is over, and you have been caught. Of course it is all right, if they do n't catch you at it; but if they do catch you, it is a crime which everybody must sit down on.

Then I went back to Cleveland, but thought I would try Chicago, and see if I could not