However, it was by old clocks and brass andirons and fenders that Knapp made his fortune. A gentleman asked him to procure him some old-fashioned articles of this sort, and the peddler at once went into the matter on speculation, and bought up all the old brasses he could find within a radius of fifty miles. These fenders and andirons were gladly parted with, growing rusty as they had been for years, and almost forgotten in garrets and cellars. New England farmers remember too distinctly the shiverings and burnings of their youth not to feel an insurmountable prejudice against open fires. So Knapp, whose wider knowledge made him master of the fact that this present generation, sickened of stoves and dreary black holes in the wall and burnt dead heat, and longing for some cheerful household centre, were restoring the old fireplaces and open fires, where the flames could leap and roar, and the logs burn and glow and smoulder,--Knapp, I say, humored this fancy by opening his shop and offering his old-fashioned fenders and andirons to the public. He had bought them at a mere song, and sold them again at a price so reasonable that any purchaser might be suited, yet still at a profit of five hundred to a thousand per cent. Once started as a regular dealer, he went steadily on: his activity was incessant, and always productive. His energies seemed to have been shaped by an unerring and divining instinct. He found old sideboards, chests, wardrobes, brought from England two centuries ago, dropping to pieces in barns and cellars. He found an "almost priceless Elizabethan cabinet" serving as a hen-house in a farmer's barnyard, and another in a little better condition used as a receptacle for pies in his cellar. He bought them both for five dollars, had them "restored," and sold one for eight hundred and the other for five hundred dollars. It is true that this process of "restoration" was an expensive one, and in his next venture of the sort he demanded higher prices without offering articles so valuable or so unique. At present he is engaged in refurnishing a North River mansion of colonial times with suitable furniture and decorations, and will be handsomely rewarded for his pains. But he is too well known now to find rare and curious articles as freely parted with as they were a few years ago. Still, the hard times help him. Then, too, in New England old families are constantly passing away, and leaving what small possessions belonged to the last surviving maiden of the race to far-away relations. These possessions, consisting of good solid old furniture, are certain to become Knapp's if he finds anything desirable among them. He has been known to go to a house within twelve hours of the death of the last surviving member of the family, and offer to negotiate with a servant or friend of the deceased for a chair, table, clock or sideboard he coveted. I doubt if an auction of old furniture has occurred for four years within one hundred miles of him