348 THE GREAT NORTH-WEST 



have a partner ; and I knew one man who was proprietor 

 of nearly a dozen waggons which took different routes ; 

 and this man amassed a very large fortune, notwithstand- 

 ing that he was frequently robbed by his " deputy-bosses," 

 who sometimes not only sold his goods but his horses and 

 wasfSfons as well, and skedaddled with the dollars. The 

 man I refer to was one of the meanest skinflints I ever 

 met, and used to cry and hoAvl aloud when he suffered 

 such a loss as that I have referred to ; yet he told me 

 himself that he was worth half a million dollars besides 

 the value of his stock and waggons. When he was nearly 

 sixty he married a very pretty girl of twenty, and a year 

 or two afterwards she obtained a divorce from him on the 

 ground of his meanness. This is really so, and the judge, 

 in pronouncing the decree, told the defendant that, though 

 he had plenty of money, " he wasn't worth a carrot." The 

 beauty and force of this simile need not be pointed out. 



The defendant, or respondent as he would be called in 

 England, then went to live in a mean house, did his own 

 cooking — I cannot say blacked his own boots, for I do not 

 think they were ever subjected to that process at all — and 

 used to threaten any intruders near his door with a gun. 

 In this miserable way he lived for many years, and was 

 still alive when I last heard of him, being then over 

 eighty. 



If this is all the happiness that is to be gleaned from 

 " a pile," I have no cause to reproach myself for having 

 made one and spent it. For I have at least seen much of 

 a most beautiful world, and enjoyed more days of unal- 

 loyed happiness than a certain class of moralists seem to 

 allow, on the average, to what they call " miserable man." 



