A good story is told to show how, though driving a keen bargain, he was careful not to misrepresent. In his store one day he was divulging to a friend some of the secrets of his business, showing how successfully a _prime_ beaver-napped hat could be made with the slightest sprinkling of the valuable beaver fur, a trick just then discovered. Soon after a purchaser appeared inquiring for a beaver-napped hat. Mr. Rogers expatiated upon the marvelous beauty of the "tile," and his customer put the question: "Mr. Rogers, is this a genuine beaver hat?" "My dear sir," said Mr. Rogers, "I pledge my word that the best part of the material in that hat is pure beaver." The hat was bought and paid for and the customer departed, well satisfied with his purchase. At once Mr. Rogers was catechised by his friend, who had earnestly watched the trade, remarking: "Why, Mr. Rogers, did you not tell me that there was but a trifling amount of beaver in that hat you just sold, and you, a church member, so misrepresent to a customer?" "My friend," replied Mr. Rogers, "I made no misrepresentation, I told my customer the honest fact, that the _best_ part of the material of which the hat was made was pure beaver, and so it was." The journeyman hatter of Mr. Rogers' time was a character, migratory in his ways, his general habit being to work for a short time--a season or less in one place--then, from desire of change or lack of employment, to seek for pastures new. As railroad travel was not then thought of, and stage-coach conveyance a luxury at most times beyond the pecuniary means of the itinerant hatter, the journey was usually made on foot. Application for work could not be made to the proprietor, but must necessarily go through the medium of an employee. Frequently an applicant in straitened circumstances who failed to be "shopped," appealed to his more fortunate fellow-workmen to relieve his destitute condition, who always made a ready and hearty response by providing for his immediate wants and starting him again on his pilgrimage with a light heart and a wish for good luck. This constant wandering habit frequently brought the hatter of those days to a condition of abject dependence, and supplied a large proportion of that vagrant class now denominated "tramps." It was often the boast of these hatter "tramps" that in the period of a year or two they would make the tour of the entire country from Portland, Maine, to Baltimore in the South, and Pittsburg, then "far west," "shopping" awhile in some town or village and then marching on in search of another chance. [Illustration: Hat Store of Jacob Rogers.]