The old adage, “An open confession is good for the soul,” has no bearing on my case. I did not write this book to ease my conscience; but of my own free will, for my own amusement—and for yours, too, I trust. I am going to tell you how I made my money. I will acknowledge in the outset that I was a fakir of the fakirs, a Simon-pure article. Today I occasionally run across an old acquaintance, who greets me with an admonishing grin, and the apostrophe, “Look at the airs he puts on now; and I can r

Becoming Ambitious—Leaving Home—Hotel Porter—Card Business—Lightning Rod Agent—The Accident—Twelve Glasses of Water. I was born in the good old State of Illinois, my birthplace being on a farm just twenty miles out of Chicago. Here I lived until I was eighteen years of age. My father was fairly well fixed as a farmer and gave me as good an education, both classical and musical, as a country residence could afford. In those early days of my life the western half of the United States was virtually

Busted—Soap Signs—Walking—The Two Actors—Free Theatres—Jumping Bills—The Other Fakir—Pen Scheme—Street Talk—The Friendly Haystack. Every man who has ever rustled on the road has had his experiences with that peculiar disease known as shortness of cash. I believe I have been “busted” more times than any other man on earth; and I am sure that the disease never elsewhere struck me with half the stunning force then it did when adrift and alone in the streets of Davenport. It was positively my first

Meeting Prof. Carter—The Music Scheme—Flowers and Novelties—The Ladies—The Soap Racket—Street Gags and Jokes—The Sinking Vessel. I did not allow myself to be troubled over the disappearance of the other members of the Milton Combination. In such an affair every tub has to stand on its own bottom, and I had no visible baggage which the hall owner could attach, or any irate landlord claim as his own until all scores were paid. I went around to the hotel and coolly informed the proprietor that the

The Contemptible Piano Tuner—The Biographical Write-up Fake—The Flattered Blacksmith. “There are tricks in all trades but ours,” quoted the doctor that night, when he had returned to the hotel. “And I suppose the reason there are no tricks in our trade is because there is positively no epidermis to hold them. It is trickery and nothing else. “Nevertheless, there are tricks; and there are other tricks. I have no patience with the others. My principle, as I have already explained, is to always giv

Fakir Maxims—A Happy Meeting—Auction Business—Talk and Auction Gags—The Boy Auctioneer—Parting With Prof. Carter. Before we separated the doctor gave me some parting words of admonition. “My son,” he said, beaming on me in a proud and happy way—for were not his pockets filled to bursting with the result of the raid on B——.? “it is dead easy to work the public if you have confidence in yourself, and a thorough understanding of the people with whom you deal. “I have been in the business a good man

Getting a Knowledge of Scheme Goods—Frightening the Ladies—Trick at Church Fair—Street Work—The Catchy Little Lookbacks—Giving Them Away—The Horse and Loaf of Bread Trick—Handling Microscopes. I now had capital enough to purchase a stock of goods and to embark in the business of traveling salesman and fakir after the most approved fashion. Unfortunately, perhaps, I had no such stock to my hand, and as yet not sufficiently versed in the ways of the trade to know exactly what I wanted, or where to

The Museum Scheme and the Six Widows—Traveling Without Paying Railroad Fare—Living on Free Lunches—At a Low Ebb—The Animated Chocolate Drop—Old Auntie From Smoky Row—The Corn Doctor—The Excited Mob—Not Only Broke, But Dead-Broke—The Letter From Home—Getting Out of Town. Of course, it would take up too much time to tell of all my wanderings and my numerous ups and downs. My idea is not to give more than one experience with any particular line of business, and in that show just how I worked, and i

The New Doctor and Professional Grafter—Medicine Fake—The Electric Battery and Money—Fun with Crowd on the Street—Selling Pipes and Giving Watches Away—Fooling the Farmers—The Circus, Turnips and the Elephant—Working the Hotel Landlords. Once more I had fallen in with a doctor, and though I never considered him as finished an operator as Prof. Carter, he was certainly one of the smoothest men I ever met. He worked his rackets after what were then largely new methods, though now they may seem old

Side Lines and Schemes of Various Kinds—The Glass Pen—Pie Scheme Choked Off—Selling Notions from Wagon—Fighting the Railroad Bonds—Forced to Leave Town—Legislated Out of Business—A Warning and the Escape—The Accident—The Penny Raffling Scheme. The doctor was not by any means a lazy man, yet he believed, so long as business was prosperous, in taking his rest and ease for a fair share of the day. If he came in at night, after a good lot of sales on the street, he was ready for bed, unless he fell

Catching Suckers—Biting Myself—The Hospital Nurse and Mail Order Scheme—Working Saloon Men on Bible Racket. As I have already hinted, the work of the fakir changes with the seasons, and though some winters it was possible to continue street business successfully, especially by travel in the south, yet as a rule I have usually altered my route and plans to correspond with the climate. My partner was of the same opinion, and late in the fall turned his face homeward, working as he went. There had

The Portrait Business—Tricks of the Trade—The Band and Hall Plan—Excitement and Joke at Voting Contest—The Frame Scheme. The season came when I was to go on the road again. The winter had been one largely of rest and study, during which I had practiced my vocation enough to make a little money and keep my hand in. Added to the capital acquired in the latter part of the previous summer’s campaign, I was ready to take up almost any line of work. I confess I had a yearning for something new; someth

Tricks in Delivering and Collecting—The Stingy Landlord and the Prunes—Day Board $3.00 Per Week—Drummers $2.00 Per Day—The Elopement. In the previous chapters I have said something about orders that were turned back on my hands, and the methods I employed to make at least some profit out of my failures. I want to say a little more on the subject, referring principally to delivering and collecting. My remarks will apply not only to the picture and frame business, but also to the book and encyclop

Working the Saloon Keeper for an Extra Five—Alone Again—Arrested—Fighting the License—Sick—The Insurance Scheme—The Wheel and Cigar Dodge—The Stage Hold-Up—The Horse Doctor and Cholera—Cigars Two for a Nickel—Making a Preacher Swear. Things went along apparently prosperous for some months, until the time to form engagements for the fall and winter came around, when my best people asked for a raise in salary. At first I was inclined to grant it, for I liked the business, and, on the face of thing

Temperance Town and Cold Tea Racket—Busted Again—Money Making Schemes—The Shoemaker Couldn’t Sleep—Going Back to Street Work—The Fifty Thousand Dollar Money Deception—Jewelry Packages to Be Used Any Old Way—Some More Street Jokes—A Watch and Chain for Twenty-Five Cents. The ensuing weeks were possibly the most varied and really the most eventful of my career. There was no time to be choice. Being broke and far away from headquarters, I was forced to spread myself after any and every fashion that

Selling Musical Instruments—Trickery and Deception—Looking for Something New—Selling the Roaster—The Canvass. I got to selling pianos and organs by the merest chance. I was canvassing with a furniture polish, which was really a very good thing, and one day went into a store where musical instruments were sold, hoping to do a stroke of business. I did, and a very good stroke of business I made of it. The dealer had some talk with me, apparently liked my style, and finally offered me very good ter

Selling Bibles—Selling Books—What Was Said—Working the Customers—Curiosity—Public Meetings and Library Clubs. It was altogether an accident that I ever got into bible selling. I stumbled across a man who was probably in many respects better fitted than I to handle the business. Unfortunately for him, he was overtaken by sickness, and I did him a favor in financial as well as other ways when I allowed him for a time to turn his employment over to me. Of course, I went at it as a simple business p

Adding to Bank Account—Looked Better, Felt Better and Was Better—Selling Encyclopedias—Complete Canvass—Tricky and Persistent—Advertising Schemes—Tricks of the Present Day—Disguises—How Different Business Men Were Worked—Strategy. Having found a general line of books so profitable to handle, it might be supposed that I would have stuck to that, and not experimented with exclusive work in a single line. I reasoned, however, that a large commission, made just as easily and rapidly as a small one,

Rebuffs and Insults—The Lawyer, the Doctor and the Coon—Avoiding a License—Working the City Marshal—Jokes with the Milliner—Banking Twelve Thousand Dollars. I do not care how careful and polite a man may be, he is always bound to meet with occasional insults. I found the three classes who were most apt to be insulting were those who were in straightened circumstances, those jealous of the prosperity of another, and those who were by nature rude and devoid of average sense. I always tried to conf

The Real Estate Fake—Booming a Town—Making a Fortune—Tricks of Other People—All This World Is a Fake and Every Person in It a Fakir—The Politician and the Widow—A Diamond Ring for Two Cents. “Almost twenty years in the faking and book business. How times flies; and yet I have gained enough experience in those twenty years to last a lifetime.” So I mused one day while tilted back in my chair in front of the “Ashland” hotel, the principal house in a western town, which perhaps you may recognize un

Married and Settled Down—Retired and Happy—A Dip in the Lake—The World Is Round and Wide—Farewell. In this narrative I have given a clear, comprehensive view of a fakir’s life, as I saw it in my own experience. I have made it no better and no worse, but just as I found it. In the years that I followed the calling I had many ups and downs, yet, on the whole, was constantly advancing. Before I had been at it long I accepted temporary difficulties as a matter of course—unpleasant while they lasted,