"As you want something for a present," said he to the sailor, "would you not like to give something really useful and valuable that would last for years?" In three minutes the sailor was walking out of the store, happy enough, with the shawl under his arm, and the sharp youth was depositing the price thereof in the money-drawer. Very soon he had an opportunity of assisting to gull the public on a great scale. His employer bought out the stock of an old-fashioned dry-goods store in another part of the town for a small sum; upon which he determined to have a grand "selling off." To this end he filled the old shop with all his old, faded, unsalable goods, besides looking around among the wholesale houses and picking up several cart-loads of cheap lots, more or less damaged. The whole town was flooded with bills announcing this selling off of the old established store, at which many goods could be obtained at less than half the original cost. As this was then a comparatively new trick the public were deceived by it, and it had the most astonishing success. The selling off lasted several weeks, the supply of goods being kept up by daily purchases. Our junior clerk was an apt learner in deception and trickery. Shortly after this experiment upon the public credulity, a careless boy lighting the lamps in the window (for this was before the introduction of gas) set some netting on fire, causing a damage of a few shillings, the fire being almost instantly extinguished. As business had been a little dull, the junior clerk conceived the idea of turning the conflagration to account. Going up to his employer, and pointing to the singed articles, he said to him:-- "Why not have a selling off here, and clear out all the stock damaged by fire?" The master laughed at the enormity of the joke, but instantly adopted the suggestion, and in the course of a day or two, flaming posters announced the awful disaster and the sale. In preparing for this event, the clerks applied lighted paper to the edges of whole stacks of goods, slightly discolored the tops of stockings, and in fact, they singed to such an extent as almost to cause a real conflagration. During these night operations a great deal of beer was consumed, and the whole effect of the manoeuvre was injurious and demoralizing to every clerk in the store. This sale also was ridiculously successful. A mob surrounded the doors before they were opened, and to keep up the excitement some low-priced goods were ostentatiously sold much below cost. Such was the rush of customers that at noon the young men were exhausted by the labor of selling; the counters were a mere litter of tumbled dry-goods; and the shop had to be closed for a while for rest and putting things in order. To keep up the excitement, the master and his favorite junior clerk rode about London in hackney coaches, in search of any cheap lots that would answer their purpose.