FIPS came to my desk in the office of The Daily Censor, one afternoon,-Philetus Fips. You know Fips? He is son of Old Fips, for what I know-Old Fips, who had rooms in Austin Friars, and who drew long horse-hairs out of the cover of his high stool and ate them with such a great appearance of appetite, as is at length related in "Martin Chuzzlewit." Fips has been long energetically at work, and is extensively known, as agent for the Children's Life and Anti-Measles Insurance Company. In behalf of that most benevolent and useful corporation, and at the instance of Fips, I had aforetime composed some pretty able papers (I flatter myself), in the way of advertisements and prospectuses, which fact had occasioned the present call on me.

Mr. Philetus Fips bustled across the room and shook hands with me SO ardently, and smiled upon me so beamingly, that I knew he wanted something.

66

Gasby," ," said he, in his mellow hearty way, "you're a good fellow!"

"I will be," said I, “in half a minute, when I've sent this copy up-stairs. Sit down."

And I shoved him into a chair, gummed down five scraps of newspaper on a white sheet, scratched in a paragraph of manuscript, wrote at one side, "Run up," dashed upon the other side two or three corrections of the press, wrote in one corner at the top, "Nonp'l lead and solid," walked across the room, thrust the page into a tin box hanging in a hole, and jerked a bellhandle. Invisible powers instantly whirled the box rattling aloft to the composing-room. I returned, crumpled a mess of maimed newspapers into the waste-basket, thrust another lot upon the dirty bare floor, and having thus cleared my decks for action, I turned short round upon Mr. Philetus Fips, and said,

"Now, then!"

"Gasby," said he, in a voice a little oily with the business suavity of the professional soliciting agent, "I've been doing pretty well in this insurance business; and I appreciate the value of your services to me in it, too."

"Then could you let me have another fifty dollars?" I asked, with so steady a face, that Fips was discomposed, and came to a "disorderly halt." I laughed, and told him to go ahead without the compliments.

"Well," said he, "you know Gorum?"

Thoroughly," said I. N. B. Gorum owns and runs a weekly newspaper, and has his little defects. In fact, he is a terribly uncomfortable fellow to deal with in money matters.

"Gasby," resumed Fips, his fat and somewhat fussy face shadowing with righteous indignation, "I do hate a mean man! There's that infernal Gorum's been and diddled me out of two hundred dollars this very morning, my commission on an advertisement I got for him. He went and saw the parties after I had received the ad, and now he says he got it himself. Gasby,"here Fips grew pathetic,-"I'm a poor man. I've a family to support. Yet, you know I don't care for money. But it wounds me-it wounds me deeply, to be so imposed upon by one whom I believed to be a friend. It's very painful!"

And Fips shook his head with a grave disapprobation, and pursed up his mouth, and opened his rather dull round eyes at me.

"You know," I remarked, "I told you once never to trust Gorum any further than you could sling an elephant by the tail. But you'll never get that money back. What are you going to do about it?"

"That's just what I've come to see you about," said Fips, instantaneously

brightening up. "I've got an idea. Big thing-monstrous!" And Fips, after an odd fashion of his, jerked to and fro in his chair and slung his legs one over the other once or twice. Then he resumed:

"Going to quit this agency business, to begin with. This affair this morning decided me to act instantly. · But I've taken my measures already, most of 'em. I'm tired of being an understrapper, to be ordered and kicked about by these folks that I go and solicit, and that I go and solicit for. I'm going to be 'big Injun' myself." Here Fips' not particularly intellectual face assumed a funny air of prophetic dignity, his voice lowered, and he bent towards me as he continued-"I'm going to get up a Petroleum Company."

And slapping me vigorously on the knee, he threw himself back in his chair with a look majestic enough for the President of a powerful Corporation, or for Alnaschar himself, that magnificent Sultan of the Future. Having contemplated his prospective glories for a moment, Fips added, with the characteristic sentiment of a vulgarian intent to wreak on others the injuries he thinks he has received,

"We'll see who'll kick folks about then!"

"Well," said I-for a sub-editor on a daily morning paper has no time to waste on glory, nor in reproving mean sentiments. If Fips wanted to pay me money for doing work, I was ready; otherwise I must "look through the exchanges." So I said, "Well,—biz— biz! What can I do, and how much can I get?"

"All sorts of things," replied Fips. “And you and I will not disagree about the pay."

And the cunning chap looked at me with a whole-souled glow in his rather fattish face, which he meant should knock off at least twenty-five per cent. from my price.

I smiled back again, more sweetly than he-if there be choice of sweetness in men's grins-and, like the chancellor

in the poem,

"Dallying with my golden chain, I smiling put the question by,"

and asked some other ones.

All those who peruse the present unaffected record will remember that during the summer and fall of the year of grace 1864, there was in New York (and elsewhere) a very large quantity of United States paper-money, and also a very large quantity of excitement about Petroleum, our very rocks having begun to drop fatness-or rather to spirt it out, in perfect rivers-as if to realize the promises so long ago made to the Hebrews. This wonderful oil had boiled in the brains of Fips as the trophies of Miltiades tumbled about in the brains of Themistocles, and I soon found that the man-I had not thought him so much of an organizer-had really set up his machine-I don't mean a derrick and engine, but a Company-and that it would necessarily go whenever steam (viz., money) should be turned on. "You say you've got it fixed," I observed. "You've got to have a charter and by-laws."

He pulled out a fist-full of manuscript from his pocket. "Here 'tis," he said; "all ready to be recorded."

"Good," I replied; "let me see who your corporators are."

He showed me the list of officers and trustees. I was amazed. The man had a good name, to begin with, respecting which it is particularly true in organizing a Petroleum Company, that it is equivalent to, if not better than, great riches. This was 66 THE NEW YORK

AND LONDON PETROLEUM COMPANY." And in his list of officers and trustees were enumerated an eminent politician, an eminent surgeon, several business men of decidedly high standing, an editor of a city-paper, and six people who lived out at Timothyville, the very centre and emporium of the oily realms of Western Pennsylvania.

"Timothyville!" said I. "How, in the name of all that's greasy, did you get these men's names?"

"Well," said Fips, with gratified pride, "I was able to induce 'em to take an interest with us."

Now I knew perfectly well that Fips was tangled with some old debts, was as poor as picra," as they say in the country, and, as I supposed, totally without hitch or hold upon any actual capital, influence, or meaus of any kind whatever.

"But do they put in money? Or do they put in land?" I asked. "If you have these men, and are getting oil now, you certainly don't need any of my help in puffing and advertising?"

"Well," said Fips, "I'll tell you all about it."

And so he did-almost all. The ingenious Fips had hitherto nourished his scheme by having either end of it (so to speak) "boost" the other. The idea of his Company had occurred to him while he was getting risks for the Children's Life and Anti-Measles Insurance Company, up in Venango County and thereabouts. While running about on his Life-and-Anti-Measly errands, he picked up a good deal of information about oil-property, and of acquaintance with business men in those parts. So he quickly laid out a scheme, having like Calvinism and the Sixth WardFive Points. These were:

1. Stock One Million Dollars.

2. The intended officers and trustees to be bribed by receiving shares gratis, the same to become money by subsequent financiering.

3. Timothyville corporators to be influenced by the example of those in New York, and vice versa. This was the mutual boosting part.

the man had opened the campaign with a daring and swiftness that would have pleased Napoleon the Great!

Rooms, rooms!" I exclaimed"how the mischief-how about rent?" "Biffles and I-Biffles is to be our secretary-contrived to pay a quarter's rent in advance, and cash for the furniture. Took every cent we could raise, though- but not a word of that, Gasby."

"Well, but land? You've got no land? Are you going to go and ask people to make you a clear present of a million dollars for you and Biffles to speculate with?"

Fips drew out another lot of printed handbills with a manuscript tail. It contained about fifty items, all numbered in a row, of descriptions of property, whereof the following are speci

mens:

"23. The Working Interest, being three fourths of all the Oil, in a leasehold estate of half an acre, known as the MacCrackly Lease, on Popcock Creek. This invaluable estate lies in a direct line between the celebrated China Well, so called from its depth, and now yielding Seven Hundred Barrels a-day, and the famous Hicockalorum Well, now yielding Eight Hundred Barrels aday. There is room on the MacCrackly Lease for sinking at least Fifty wells, and one is to be immediately begun by the Company."

line from the great Hicockalorum Well, already mentioned, and has wells in actual activity on every side of it. It affords abundant room for sinking Five Hundred Wells, and parties now stand ready to take leases of it at $1,000 the acre, besides half the oil."

"We've secured all that," said Fips to me. "The land is ours. I have such offers of it and such refusals of it secured to me in writing, that unless the rest of the scheme is an entire failure, the Company holds the real estate of which that is a part."

I pondered a moment. "This is all a fair, square, genuine, bona-fide business enterprise, is it, Mr. Fips, on your word?"

Certainly, it is," said Fips, with a thoroughly hearty smile, and grasping fervently the hand I offered-" perfectly bony-fide" (he put but one syllable in fide), "in every particular, on my word."

In short, I agreed to be aiding and abetting Mr. Fips in the launching of his craft. He was business manager and real Company; Biffles, the Secretary, being his creature, and old Judge Flutterbug, the President, a mere heathen god, set up to attract the golden offerings which were to be raked in by Highpriest Fips, standing behind and pulling the strings occasionally to make the image wink and kick. I for my part was to draw up any requisite narrative, recommendatory, or other papers, and to have charge of the advertising; my pay to be (a proper amount) in money and Fifty shares in the Company, and also whatever percentage off the cost of advertising I could extort from the newspaper-men in consideration of bringing them the business.

Cash in advance for the advertising, however, that was the final pinch. About the salutary effects upon that big trustful booby, the Public, of Advertisements, when the same should be sufficiently taken, there was no doubt; certainly none in the minds of Philetus Fips, Insurance Agent, or of Ananias Gasby, Newspaper Sub. But cash in advance?

Fips could not do it. It was absolutely necessary to put in at least $5,000 instantly. Fips might as well have tried to take hold of Long Island under Brooklyn Heights, and stand it up endways on Montauk Point. The silence of aspiring impecuniosity fell upon us, presently broken, however, by Fips, hortatory:

"By George, Gasby, this thing must go through! There's over five hundred petroleum companies already. It's high tide in oil, and there's a fortune in this enterprise for every one of us. It must

go! It must go now! Confound it! Can't you think of something?

"Now, Fips," I answered with deliberation to this impassioned appeal (based, by the way, on fortunes to other folks and a little hire to me)-" now, Fips, could you meet that advertising bill at the end of three months, if I could get you so much time on it?"

With the most fervent asseveration Fips affirmed it; and indeed specified sundry commissions and moneys coming to him, which did in fact show that he could do as he said.

"Well, Fips," said I, "just have this express understanding with me-that I shall have charge of all the advertising that your Company does, for, say two years, at the commission we agreed on, and I will guarantee you three months. I can do it with Spreademout & Co., the advertising agents, by a personal pledge; and I believe you can pay if necessary."

Fips agreed, with enthusiastic readiness, many assurances of present thankfulness and future gratitude, and reiterated averments that he knew I was a good fellow; and our bargain was closed.

Now it remained to draft an advertisement, which should serve also as a prospectus, to distribute by mail. After consultation with Fips, I procured some newspapers with articles on petroleum, read a learned paper in an encyclopædia, examined prospectuses of half-adozen other companies for suggestions what to do and what not to do, and went vigorously to work. What an ad I drafted! (In the newspaper offices and the advertising business they say "ad"-it means exactly as much as "advertisement," and is two letters instead of thirteen.) Dear me few people know what a matter of high art it is to draw a good advertisement. The task is much like that favorite classical amusement of composing inscriptions. The facts must be stated tersely, handsomely, takingly; the whole must be set off with "display lines," "stud-horse type" (to use the strong technic of the composing-room),

very