RECOLLECTIONS, 1838. 117 



drank at Yorkville, so I asked for a candle ! A can- 

 dle ? Yes. You may laugh, for when I got out of 

 the store, going back to my lodging, I laughed myself 

 at my shrewdness ! Weburned oil, and I had no need 

 of it. I laughed a great deal more than all those who 

 may read this silly story will, for after lighting my 

 flam~beau I took a book to read, to see if it was good 

 tallow or wax, and the first thing I read, was, a story 

 of a fellow of my school who went to a dry good store 

 and walked from one end to the other of the store, 

 when one of the clerks asked him what he wanted ? 

 O ! nothing, he said, I only wanted to see the store 

 "keepers daughter, and I do not see her, is she gone 

 out ? The story did not say if he wanted to buy her, 

 as I had done, with my candle .... But that incident of 

 being turned out of railroad cars for want of ten cents, 

 when I had forty dollars in my pocket, did not give 

 me a very good opinion of American money, for many 

 years later the country was literally overflooded with 

 such dirty money, and to help it, quantities of those 

 bills counterfeited. When you went in a store to buy 

 for sixpence, if you had no small change to pay for, 

 you had to wait ten or fifteen minutes, until the store- 

 keeper had looked in a sort of detector to see if yonr 

 money was good. That was not the Golden Age ! ! 



