"It's called, 'Solomon Smart visits the City.'"




CHAPTER VIII.


Solomon Smart, of New Portage, O., dealer in general merchandise and
country produce, had been in business three years, but had never,
until the present occasion, visited the city where the larger share of
his purchases came from.

Going to the city was something to which he had long looked forward.
He had dreamt of it when he was a clerk; he had eagerly questioned the
traveling men about it, and his old employer always told marvelous
tales when he returned from his annual trip.

When the old man died, and Solomon, assisted by his father-in-law, was
enabled to buy the stock, he began to arrange for a business trip to
the city, but somehow every plan he made was interfered with and came
to naught. It was a source of great grief to him that he could not
carry out his plans.

"If I could only get to Toledo," he often said to his wife, "I could
save at least 10 per cent on prices, and I could pick up job lots of
things at big discounts. All the jobbing houses have odds and ends
that they are willing to sell at anything they can get, in order to
get rid of the stuff. I hate to buy of drummers. It costs piles of
money to keep them on the road, and the men that buy of them have to