If by success you mean mere money-making, it is not to be denied that some men do that by an instinct, little, if at all, superior to that of the dog who smells out a bone.  There are exceptions to all rules; and there are chances in all games, even in games of skill.  Lord Timothy Dexter, as he is facetiously called, shipped warming-pans to the West Indies, in defiance of all geographical objections to the venture, and made money by the shipment,—­not because warming-pans were wanted there, but because the natives mistook and used them for molasses-ladles.  It must be owned that a portion of the successful ones are lucky,—­that a portion of them use the blunt weapon of an indomitable will, as an efficient substitute for the finer edge of that nice tact and good manners which they lack.  Their very rudeness seems to commend them to the rude natures which confound refinement with trickery and assume that brutality must needs be honest.

But there are other things to be said of buying.  The dry-goods jobber frequents the auction-room.  If you have never seen a large sale of dry-goods at auction, you have missed one of the remarkable incidents of our day.  You are not yet aware of how much an auctioneer and two or three hundred jobbers can do and endure in the short space of three hours.  You must know that fifty or a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of goods may easily change owners in that time.  You are not to dream of the leisurely way of disposing of somebody’s household-furniture or library, which characterizes the doings of one or two of our fellow-citizens who manage such matters within speaking distance of King’s Chapel:  but are rather to picture to yourself a congregation of three hundred of the promptest men in our Atlantic cities, with a sprinkling of Westerners quite as wide awake for bargains, each of them having marked his catalogue; an auctioneer who considers the sale of a hundred lots an hour his proper role, and who is able to see the lip, eye, or finger of the man whose note he covets, in spite of all sounds, signs, or opaque bodies.  The man of unquiet nerves or of exacting lungs would do well to leave that arena to the hard-heads and cool-bloods who can pursue their aim and secure their interests:  undisturbed either by the fractional rat-a-tat-tat of the auctioneer’s “Twenty-seven af—­naf—­naf—­naf,—­who’ll give me thirty?” or by the banter and comicalities which a humor-loving auctioneer will interject between these bird-notes, without changing his key, or arresting his sale a moment.  If you would see the evidence of comprehensive and minute knowledge, of good taste, quick wit, sound judgment, and electrical decision, attend an auction-sale in New York some morning.  There will be no lack of fun to season the solemnity of business, nor of the mixture of courtesy and selfishness usual in every gathering, whether for philanthropic, scientific, or commercial purposes.  Many dry-goods jobbers will attend the sale with no intention of buying, but simply to note the prices obtained, and, having traced the goods to their owners, to get the same in better order and on better terms; the commission paid to the auctioneer being divided, or wholly conceded by the seller to the buyer, according to his estimate of the note.