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Show Waistcoat Cost Him S500.000. "I was so prosperous In 1SG2 as to he able to have two vests," said a veteran newspaper man, "and one of these cost mo $500,000. Solomon in all his glory never put up as much as that, 7 he- j lieve, for his wholo wardrobe. 7 could get a vest every bit as good as that now for .$Lij0. "This happened on' Oil Creek; in the early days of petroleum. 7 had wandered wan-dered over there In ISO"-'. I was only a kid, but 1 had saved ,"0. About that time the flowing- oil wells were being struck. Men who were poor one day were finding themselves millionaires the next. I suppose there aro a. good ninny people out .there yet who remember Jim Sherman. When 7 first met Jim ho had a lease on one corner of what was known as the 1'oster farm, and was trying to find oil on it. "For some rea;on or other speculation specula-tion hadn't east the eye of favor on the Foster farm as yc-t. hut .Mm Sherman Sher-man believed it had the oil sand under It. and on the strength of Jim's faith his wife had put in every cent she had received as a legacy from her father ($fiO0) lo help .Jim out In his venture When I ran up against Jim I had been in tho region only a couple of days, and my ?f.O was still Intact. I had a boarding board-ing place about half a mile from where Jim was struggling to get his well Into i lie sand he believed in. He had exchanged ex-changed an eighth Interest In his well for a drilling engine, and he had disposed of a sixteenth interest for $fi0 in cash and a shotgun, and that $i!0 and tho 15 lie sold the shotgun for and a hoise which he had traded another sixteenth interest in his well for. had all been absorbed, and the drill had not yet struck uiJ. . , "It was at this Interesting condition ' of tho Sherman well that 7 ran up against Jim. He -was in despair. 7Ie had no hope 0f being able to obtain another dollar. le had been offering aunt au-nt her six! eon til Interest In his lease for ?ii0. with no takers. I thought the matter over for a while, and then said to Jim that I would take the one-sixteenth. " I'lodueo the flftv!' said he. "I felt for my llity.- II wasn't there, and 1 at once remembered I hat I had put on my other vest when I came out and had forgotten to change my little wad of wealth to It from tho pocket of the vest I had tahen off. 7 explained matters to Jim Sherman, and started at once for tho boarding house to got the monoy. 1 got It all right, and was on my w.iy back lo Invest in the Sherman oil well when I saw people running wildly fi-om every direction toward the Sherman lease nnd heard them yelling: urns turucic n, iy : ahu struck It big!' "So he had. While 7 was awav to . get the Sod 1 had left In my other 'vesl the diill in ibe Sherman ueli had dropped intij'lhe ssind and she was Npoullng al 21100-linrrel rate, and she kept un spouting spout-ing for two years. Before she iilt :ho . had spouted more than 2.000,000 barrls . of oil, and Hie average price of oil dur- ' lag that time was ?i a barrel. ,Jlm Slier- ; man cleared up something- like ?i'..000.000 , oul of 11, and if 1 hadn't" been so pros- 1 perous that 7 was able to have two vests, i 125.000 barrels of ihat oil would have been mine, 'dial's how one of llins'i: vests 1 cost ine $n00.000 " New Yuri; Sun. t |