Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1901 — CORNER IN FOX TERRIERS. [ARTICLE]

CORNER IN FOX TERRIERS.

Promising Vsntur* Brought to Oriel Through Over-Greediness. "Say, friend,” said the dejected one, walking briskly alongside, “I’m fresh from doing a ‘ninety’ up in Paterson for organizing a syndicate, and I’m hungry. Got a dime about you?” “Eh?” queried the reporter for the Newark Call, pricking up hia ears; “ninety days for organizing a syndicate?” “Yes, sir, a fox terrier syndicate,” said the man, proudly. “I had the market up in Paterson cornered, and 6tood to make hundreds of good dollars, when the syndicate was upset by treachery—pure treachery,” with a sigh. “Hum! Hand out the whole tale, and if it’s a good one I’ll give you a quarter,” said the scribe, scenting copy. “All right, boss. I was looking in a Paterson paper for ‘help wanted—male’—you needn’t grin—when I noticed in another column four fox terrier dogs advertised for—great dog? to get lost, fox terriers. An idea came to me. Thinks I, folks are giving as high as five dollars in this town to get a measly lost dog back when they wouldn’t lend a hard-working man a dollar to keep him from starving. I’ll just round up those lost dogs and get five bones apiece for them. To do it I’ll have to get in touch with the fellows who swiped them.” “Yes,” said the reporter, for the man seemed lost in introspection. “Oh, excuse me. I was thinking how I’d spend that quarter. I spent my last cent for an advertisement, and offered $25 reward for a lost fox terrier—white, with brown and black spots; answers to the name of ‘Dewey’—a pretty good description of the w hole breed. The address was a vacant lot in Paterson’s swell residence street, up Sandy Hill way. I needed a helper, and struck the very man I wanted—a scrapper, down on his luck, named ‘Biffer.’ ‘Biffer’ wasn’t very fast witted—l thoughthe wasn't—(sighing deeply)—but he was a man you’d hate to meet in a lonely spot on a dark night. His part waste meet the long-lost pup in it’s finder’s arms, grab it and scare the thief to death, and he was to get four dollars of the reward for the job. “Twenty-five dollars offered for a lost fox terrier in Paterson made a bigger stir among the easy-fingered than I imagined it would. It kept ‘Biffer’ busy taking away fox terriers which they had pinched from rich houses to 6ee if they wouldn’t fit with that fat reward. The syndicate idea came to me as I saw the terriers rolling in, and I sold a likely pup to a saloon keeper for one dollar, and advertised fresh, raising the ante to $35. “I cleaned up the supply of terriers in the Paterson market and caged them in an old barn by Riverside. The next mgh't there was a solid column of lost fox terriers in the paper at five dollars ahead reward—and I had 75 terriers down in the barn.

“ ‘Biffer’ got uneasy. He counted on his fingers a long time, and finally figured out that I would get $375 for the lot. When he learned that the syndicate was going to hold the terriers for a stiff rise he put in a bill for a big slice of the total, and right there is where the syndicate made its big mistake—it should have promised the divvy and skipped at thecleanup. Instead, it held ‘Biffer’ right down to his bargain, four dollars, and, as events showed, set the slow wheels in his head to turning. “The second night six dollars was offered for terriers, and the next $6.50 —l’atereon, all over, that half dollar. The market held firm, with no sales, waiting for the ten-dollar mark. Then, when the syndicate’s garden seemed ready to bloom, the corner broke through the treachery of ‘BifI fer.’ “Treading on air, with thought* of the Waldorf-Astoria and Newport | surging through my brain, I wa&takj en, redhanded, entering the barn with ten cents’ worth of liver to feed the 'syndicate’s corner. ‘Biffer,’ the betrayer, took in the six fifties each for his ‘accidental’ find of a Iwrn full of fox terriers, and I took in the long term—in jail—9o days. Do I get the quarter?” “I guess so,” said the reporter, paying up.