CHAPTER IV.
"How is business ?" "Very dull, I am losing terribly." "Any prospect of times brightening ?" "I don't see my way out clear; but I hope there will be a change for the better.

Confidence has been greatly shaken, men of[ ?] business have grown exceedingly timid about investing and there is a general depression in every department of trade and business." "Now Paul will you listen to reason and common sense?
I have a proposition to make.

I am about to embark in a profitable business, and I know that it will pay better than anything else I could undertake in these times.

Men will buy liquor if they have not got money for other things.

I am going to open a first class saloon, and club-house, on M.
Street, and if you will join with me we can make a splendid thing of it.
Why just see how well off Joe Harden is since he set up in the business; and what airs he does put on! I know when he was not worth fifty dollars, and kept a little low groggery on the corner of L.and S.
Streets, but he is out of that now--keeps a first class _Cafe_, and owns a block of houses.