The Protest

READER! did you ever have a visit from that dreaded functionary--that rod in pickle, held in terrorem over the heads of the whole note-paying fraternity, yclepted a notary? I do not mean to insult you: so don't look so dark and dignified. I am serious. If no--why no, and there let the matter rest, as far as you are concerned; if yes, why yes, and so I have an auditor who can understand me.

As for me, I have been protested. I say it neither with shame nor pride. Yes, I have suffered notarial visitation, and am still alive to tell the tale.

I was in business when the exciting event occurred, and I am still in business, and I believe as well off as I was then. But let me relate the circumstance.

When I first started in the world for myself, I had a few thousand dollars. In a little while, I found myself solicited on all sides to make bills. I could have bought fifty thousand dollars' worth of goods as easily as to the amount of five thousand dollars; and the smallest sum I have named was about the extent of my real capital. There was one firm importunate above the rest, and they were successful in getting me into their debt more heavily than I was to any other house. If I happened to be passing their store, I would be called in, with--

"Here, Jones, I want to show you something. New goods just in; the very thing for your sales."

Or--

"Ah! how are you, Jones? Can't we sell you a bill, to-day?"

They were for ever importuning me to buy, and often tempted me to make purchases of goods that I really did not want. I was young and green then, and did not know any thing about shelves full of odds and ends, and piece upon piece of unsaleable goods, all of which had to be paid for.

For two or three years, I managed to keep along, though not so pleasantly as if I had used my credit with less freedom. By that time, however, the wheels of my business machinery were sadly clogged. From a salesman behind my counter, I became a "financier." (!)

During the best hours of the day, and when I was most wanted in the store, I was on the street, hunting for money. It was borrow, borrow, borrow, and pay, pay, pay. My thoughts were not directed toward the best means of making my business profitable, but were upon the ways and means of paying my notes, that were falling due with alarming rapidity. I was nearly all the time in the delectable state of mind of the individual who, on running against a sailor, was threatened with being knocked "into the middle of next week." "Do it, for heaven's sake!" he replied--"I would give the world to be there."

On Monday morning, I could see my way through the week no clearer than this note-haunted sufferer. In fact, I lived a day at a time. On the first of each month, when I looked over my bill-book, and then calculated my resources, I was appalled. I saw nothing ahead