lost, and the man that duns _me_ for two or three dollars' worth of newspapers, _may get it if he knows how_." Well, the good time has _come_. Printers now may wait no longer; the jig's up--they have found out a _way_ to get their money just as easy as other laborers in the fields of science, art, mechanism, law, physic and religion, get theirs. Let the printer cry _Eureka_. Doctor Pendleton St. Clair Smith, a patron of the fine arts, best tailors, barbers, boot blacks, and the newspaper press, was a tooth operator of some skill and great pretension. He lived and moved in modern style, and though no man could be more desirous of indulging in "short credit," no man believed or acted more readily upon the principle-- ----"base is the slave that _pays_." Dr. P. St. C. Smith "slipped up" one day, leaving the _well done_ community of Boston and the environs, for fields more congenial to his peculiar talents. He _stuck_ the printer, of course. His numerous subscription accounts to the various local news and literary journals, in the aggregate amounted to quite considerable; and the printers didn't begin to like it! Now, it takes a Yankee to head off a Yankee, and about this time a live, double-grand-action Yankee, named Peabody, possibly, happened in at one of the offices, where two brother publishers were "making a few remarks" over delinquent subscribers, and especially were they wrought up against and giving jessy to Dr. Pendleton St. Clair Smith! "How much does the feller owe you?" quoth Peabody. "Owe? More than he'll ever pay during the present generation." "Perhaps not," says Peabody; "now if you'll just give me the full particulars of the man, his manners and customs, name and size, and sell me your accounts, at a low notch, I'll buy 'em; I'll collect 'em, too, if the feller's alive, out of jail, and any where around between sunrise and sunset!" The publishers laughed at the idea, sensibly, but finding that Peabody was up for a trade, they traced out the accounts, &c., and for a five dollar bill, Mr. Peabody was put in possession of an account of some twenty odd dollars and cents against Dr. P. St. C. Smith. Now Peabody had, some time previous to this transaction, established a peculiar kind of Telegraph, a human galvanic battery, or endless chain of them, extending all over the country, for collecting bad debts, and _shocking_ fugitives, or stubborn creditors! By a continuation of faculties, causes and effects--shrewdness and forethought peculiar to a man capable of seeing considerably deep into millstones--Peabody couldn't be _dodged_. If he ever got his _feelers_ on to a subject, the _equivalent_ was bound to be turning up! It struck him that the collection of newspaper bills afforded him a great field for working his Telegraph, and he hasn't been mistaken.