When Sam was on the road, in addition to his grip--which held a change of waistcoats (Sam did his finest work with a waistcoat), some collars and a couple of shirts, one to wash and the other to wear, a tooth-brush and a comb--he held the brass checks of four huge trunks made of rawhide and strapped and cornered with iron. These went by weight and were paid for at schedule prices. When a baggage-master overweighed these trunks an ounce and charged accordingly there came an uncomfortable moment and an interchange of opinions, followed by an apology and a deduction, Sam standing by. Only on occasions like these did the smiles disappear from the corners of Sam's mouth. Whenever these ironclads, however, were elevated to the upper floor of a hotel, and Sam began to make himself at home, the wriggles playing around the corners of his mouth extended quite up his smiling cheeks with the movement of little lizards darting over a warm stone. And his own welcome from everybody in the house was quite as cordial and hilarious. "Hello, Sam, old man! Number 31's all ready--mail's on your bureau." This from the clerk. "Oh! is it you ag'in, Mister Sam? Oh--go 'long wid ye! Now stop that!" This from the chambermaid. "It's good to git a look at ye! And them box-cars o' yourn ain't no bird-cages! Yes, sir--thank ye, sir." This from the porter. But it was when the trunks were opened and their contents spread out on the portable and double-up-able pine tables, and Bullock & Sons' (of Spring Falls, Mass.) latest and best assortment of domestic cutlery was exposed to view, and the room became crowded with Sam's customers, that the smile on his face became a veritable coruscation of wriggles and darts; scurrying around his lips, racing in circles from his nose to his ears, tumbling over each other around the corners of his pupils and beneath the lids; Sam talking all the time, the keen eyes boring, or taking impressions, the sales increasing every moment. [Illustration: The room became crowded with Sam's customers.] When the last man was bowed out and the hatches of the ironclads were again shut, anyone could see that Sam had skimmed the cream of the town. The hayseeds might have what was left. Then he would go downstairs, square himself before a long, sloping desk, open a non-stealable inkstand, turn on an electric light, sift out half a dozen sheets of hotel paper, and tell Bullock & Sons all about it. On this trip Sam's ironclads were not wide open on a hotel table, but tight-locked aboard a Fall River steamer. Sam had a customer in Fall River, good for fifty dozen of B. & S.'s No. 18 scissors, $9--10 per cent. off and 5 more for cash. The ironclads had been delivered on the boat by the transfer company. Sam had taken a street-car. There was a block, half an hour's delay, and Sam arrived on the string-piece as the gangplank was being hauled aboard. "Look out, young feller!" said the wharf man; "you're left."