“I know the man,” said my new friend; “let him go ahead and sue and be-benefited, if he can; meanwhile, do you keep easy; I’ll stand by you.”

And stand by me he did through thick and thin.  The hardware man sued me no less than nineteen times, and for pretty much everything-damages, debt, breach of contract, and what not.  With the assistance of a lawyer whom my friend recommended to me, I beat my opponent in eighteen successive suits; but as fast as one suit was decided he brought another, almost before I could get out of the court room.  At last he carried the case to the Supreme Court, and from there it went to a referee.  The matter from beginning to end, must have cost him a mint of money; but he went on regardless of the costs which he hoped and expected to get out of me at last.

My long and painful experience, covering many years, had given me a pretty thorough knowledge of the law’s uncertainty, as well as the law’s delay, and very early in the course of the present suit, I had quietly disposed of my property in Rensselaer County.  I sold the little farm, which cost me sixteen hundred dollars, for twenty-one hundred dollars, and I had had, besides, the profits of nearly two years’ farming and a good living from and on the place.  I also arranged all my money matters in a manner that I felt assured would be satisfactory to me, if not to my opponent, and then, following the advice of my friend, the carpet-dealer, I let the hardware man sue and be-"benefited if he could.”  When, however, the case went finally to a referee who was certain, I felt sure, to decide against me, I took no further personal interest in the matter, nor have I ever troubled myself to learn the filial decision.  I made up my mind in a moment and decided that the time had come, at last, when it was advisable for me to go to the West.

Westward I went, towards sunset almost, and for the two following years I led, I fear, what would be considered a very vagabond life.  I went to Utah, thinking while I was in Salt Lake City, if they only knew my history there I was sure to be elected an apostle, or should be, at any rate, a shining light in Mormondom-only I had taken my wives in regular succession, and had not assembled the throng together.  I pushed across the plains, and went to California, remaining a long time in San Francisco.  This may have been vagabondism, but it was profitable vagabondism to me.  During this long wandering I held no communication with my friends in the East; friends and foes alike had an opportunity to forget me, or if they thought of me they did not know whether I was dead or alive; they certainly never knew, all the time, where I was; and while I was journeying I never once met a man or woman who had been acquainted with me in the past.  All the time, too, I had plenty of money; indeed, when, I returned at last I was richer far than I was when I left Albany, and left as the common saying graphically expresses it, “between two days.”