After that, some dozen or more of the large wholesale houses engaged him to furnish their counting-rooms with lunch, and he began with brilliant prospects.  He brought his basket around to me for first choice.  Everything was very nice; a clean new basket, covered with a white cloth, wherein lay piles of neatly arranged packages done up in letter-paper, with a strange-looking character inscribed upon each.

“What do these letters mean?” I asked, taking up one of the packages, and trying in vain to decipher the cabalistic sign upon it.

Thomas chuckled.

“Oh, that’s to show de kine of san’wich dey is, Mist’ Dunkin.  You see, seh, I got th’ee kines—­so I put ‘B’ on de beef, ‘H’ on de hahm, an’ I stahtid to put ‘H’ on de hystehs too, but den I foun’ I couldn’t tell de hystehs f’om de hahm, so den I put ‘H I’ on de hystehs.”

“Oh, I see,” said I, opening one of the “hysteh” packages.  It was very good; an excellent French roll, well spread with choice butter, and two large, nicely fried oysters between.  I ate it speedily, took another, and, that disposed of, asked the price.

“Ten cents, seh.”

“For two!”

“Yes, seh; fi’ cents ’piece.”

“Why, Thomas,” I exclaimed, “you mustn’t begin by asking five cents apiece; you’ll ruin yourself.  These things are worth at least twice as much money.  Why, I pay ten cents for a sandwich at an eating-house, and it doesn’t begin to have as good materials in it as yours.  You ought to ask more.”

“Naw, seh; naw, seh; Mist’ Dunkin; as’ less, an’ sell mo’—­that’s my motteh.  I have all dese yeah clean sole out ‘fo’ two ’clock—­clean sole out ‘fo’ two ’clock.”

I interrupted him, asking the cost of each article, and then proving to him by calculation that he lost money on each sandwich he sold at five cents.  But I could not convince him—­he received the twenty-five cents which I insisted on paying him with many expressions of gratitude, but he left me reiterating his belief in “quick sales and small profits.”  “Be back yeah clean sole out by two ’clock, sine die,” he exclaimed, brightly, as he departed.

This venture brought him six dollars in debt at the expiration of a fortnight, and after that, by my advice, he abandoned peddling, condemning it as a “low-life trade,” and agreeing to stick to legitimate business for the future.

One of his famous expressions, the most formidable rival of sine die (which, as the reader has doubtless discovered, he intended as an elegant synonym for without fail), was entirely original—­this was “Granny to Mash” (I spell phonetically), used as an exclamation, and only employed when laboring under great mental excitement.