+----------------------------------------+ | A GIGANTIC HOG-KILLING | | We have Inside Information of a Long | | Shot that Should Win To-morrow at | | 10 to 1 and Put Half of the Bookmakers | | out of Business. | | Be Sure to Have a Bet Down on | | This One. Terms $5. | +----------------------------------------+ The _argument_ of the advertisement, which appeared beneath these display lines, was couched in the most glowing terms, and made it very plain that our information came from a secret source, and, further, that we had spent legitimately a snug sum of money to secure the information. We also pointed out that the owner was one of the shrewdest betting men on the turf and seldom went astray when he put down a "plunge" bet on one of his own entries. Next day the race was run. The horse did not finish "in the money." The following day we received many letters, as we always did when one of our heavily advertised "good things" lost. One of the most unique of these epistles contained a remonstrance from a Philadelphia subscriber. He wrote in this vein: Dear Sir:--You have been advertising for some days that you would have a gigantic hog-killing to-day. I was tempted by your advertising bait and fell--and fell heavily with my entire bank roll. My bucolic training should have warned me that "hog-killings" are not customary in the early Spring, but I fell anyway. Permit me to state, having recovered my composure, that Armour or Swift need have no fear of you as a competitor in the pork-sticking line, for far from making a "hog-killing," you did not even crack an egg. Pardon me. Thanks. Good-by. Yours truly, ---- ---- PRESTIGE RESTORED BY A CLERK'S RUSE In the Summer of the second year of Maxim & Gay's great money-gathering career, the Information Bureau was "out of luck" and the patronage of the Bureau fell away to almost nothing. At this period I was seriously ill and confined to my home. A man in my office decided to take advantage of my absence from the scene to improve business a bit on his own hook. It was the habit of our track salesmen, dressed in khaki, to appear at the office at noon every day and receive a bundle of envelopes containing the tips on the races, and then immediately to proceed to the race-track, stand outside of the gates and vend them at $5 per envelope. One day these men, without their knowledge, were supplied with envelopes containing blank sheets of paper instead of the mimeographed list of tips. When a handful of town customers reached the office, they were informed that the selections would be late that day and would be on sale at the track only.