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Show The Collector It is always the fate of a man who tries to collect an old bill to get ???. Now we think of it, the old bill collector who trudges painfully through the streets from day to day, trying ever to ???the man who is ever trying to dodge him, ought to have more sympathy. His only trespass is to persuade delinquents to pay their just debts, and yet everybody looks upon him very much as a sailor looks on a craft that has raised the black flag of piracy. Poor fellow! He has a hard time of it trying to catch sight of the man who has just gone round the corner, who will be back in five minutes, so the clerk says, but who never comes back until the old bill collector has gone. It is on record that by some strange fatuity? of fortune a collector once found his debtor at home. Such a circumstance nearly took his breath away, for, like the Wandering Jew, he had been flying from pillar to post for nearly a year, and had never once found the right man in the right place; but he took out his battered wallet and presented the account, yellow with age, and humbly asked for a settlement. "You must call again," was the stern, imperative demand of the man, who never intended to have money enough to pay that bill. The victim with the threadbare clothes and the worn out shoes suggested that it was not easy to go up three flights of stairs three times a day in order to find the ominous word "out" on the office door. "Well," said the haughty debtor, "perhaps you would like to have me rent a room on the first floor for the sake of my creditors." The old bill collector uttered a deep sigh, put his wallet back into his pocket, and walked into a back alley where his home was, while the jaunty debtor sprang into his landau and went up to the park for a drive. Such is life. New York Herald. |