96 THE FOGY DAYS AND NOW ; 



buckle factory. I shall never forget the joy I felt that 

 mornino- as I surveyed that embryo buckle factory, the pride 

 of that epoch in my life's history, with what complacency and 

 self confidence, with v/hat intensity of satisfaction with myself 

 and all the rest of mankind, as I stood there with my arms 

 folded across my peaceful breast, contemplating the vast 

 fortune that had so benificently fallen into my lap. Oh, could 

 I have died right then ; but alas for all human hopes, when we 

 feel strong it is so often but the precursor to our own weak- 

 ness. While thus wrapt in the glories and fulness of my 

 great enterprise, black Dan was hitching on a pair of buckles 

 to his home-made gallases, but the tongues to the buckles bent 

 and easily broke ; they wouldn't hold, and a sharp exclamation 

 from the negro broke up my reveries. " Why ! Marse Dave,' 

 he exclaimed, "dese buckles, dey aint no good, look-a-here." 

 I saw it, the truth flashed upon me like a thunderbolt ; it stag- 

 gered me. I tremblingly asked, "what's that Dan?" He 

 answered, " dese buckles." It was enough, I was stupefied, 

 squelched ; this was a part of the business that had been com- 

 pletely overlooked; ruined, bursted, at one fell swoop a bank- 

 rupt. There was only one case of equal gravity that I could 

 think of, and that was when Lucifer fell from Heaven. 

 Instead of the great millionaire, as I had calculated, I was a 

 pauper ; instead of one who had achieved both fortune and 

 fame, I was now a miserable culprit, for I knew the pewter 

 plates and spoons had to be accounted for. I turned from 

 Dan, my faithful colleague, in gloomy silence, spiritless and 

 hopeless, bearing my almost paralyzed body back to the 

 parental mansion, where I found new troubles awaiting me. 

 My mother had the cook up to answer for the missing utensils. 

 I could not allow the poor innocent woman to suffer for me ; I 



