her, and was soon back to the "Bull's Head," safe and sound. Then I rode away to Putnam County for another drove of cattle.

The saying, "selling watered stock," has now got to be well-known in the financial world. So I've wrote down in this paper about the affair of salting my critters. Some time later I became an operator in the New York Stock Exchange; I hung out my shingle on Broad Street. And the scheme was even more profitable with railroad stocks. If a fellow can make money selling a critter just after she has drunk up fifty pounds of water, what can't he make by issuing a lot of new shares of a railroad or steamboat company, and then selling this just as though it was the original shares? But for this drover time in my life, these smaller profits seemed mighty big.

For I didn't let the salting scheme rest with only the one trial. After I got back to Putnam County I lost no time in getting another drove together and hurrying it back to the city. Astor didn't care to buy of me this second trip. mad for any length of time.

Not that he kept He was the kind of

a fellow to cool off after a few weeks. On this, my next trip to the city, I found him as civil as I could wish.

But he wouldn't buy my cattle - made
He showed his friendly spirit,

a number of excuses.
however, by introducing me to one of his fellow
butchers in the Fulton Market; so that on the present

trip I dealt with this other butcher. In fact, I found that the stock-watering plan, while a moneymaker, had certain drawbacks. Because from now on it compelled me to deal with a different butcher 'most every trip. But that wasn't so bad as it might seem. For there were lots of butchers in the city; and in most cases I found that the butcher I'd dealt with the last time was willing to introduce me to one of his competitors, as a drover that handled choice stock. I took in profits with a big spoon.

B

VIII

Y THIS and other devices, one way or another,

I had by this time got to be tolerable well

off. In fact I had become known as one

of the richest drovers that brought cattle to the New York market. When, therefore, not long after, the "Bull's Head" tavern found itself without a proprietor, what more natural than that I should step in and take the position? I hadn't had any experience as an inn-keeper; but I'd had no end of dealings with inn-keepers. And I reckoned that a man who could make money taking care of droves, could also make money taking care of drovers. So I dickered with the people in charge, and got the place. I left Putnam County and moved down to the "Bull's Head."

up

By this time there was a little settlement growing around the tavern, known as "Bull's Head Village." My tavern was the centre of this village. So that, although we were some miles out from the city, we were never lonely for a minute. It was the centre of the New York live-stock market. Drovers came to the "Bull's Head" from York State, Connecticut, Jersey, and Long Island, bringing their

droves with them. Around my tavern there were cattle pens for the care of fifteen hundred head of cattle at once. There is nothing but the horsemarket there now to show what the place used to be. New York's cattle yards have moved since then. They moved from the "Bull's Head," first up to Forty-second Street; then to Ninety-fourth Street; and now they are moving over to Jersey City. But in my time there wasn't a minute in the day when you couldn't hear there the moo of a heifer, the bleat of a lamb, or the neigh of a horse. Pretty soon a slaughter-house was built across the post-road and below the lane which is now 26th Street. Here and there, also, were little houses for the hired men to live in. There was a store for groceries and general merchandise. All in all, quite a village was growing up around the place. And I, as proprietor of the "Bull's Head," was the king-pin of it all.

Not that I owned the tavern. That belonged to the Peter Lorillard family. They had had a farm where the "Bull's Head" stood, back in Revolutionary times. General George Washington stayed at the house once and took a meal of victuals there. When finally the "Bull's Head" tavern was built, the mahogany table from the Lorillard house was put into the tavern as a part of the furniture. When I had any guests that I wanted to honour, I would set them at that table for dinner and tell them how General George Washington had eaten from it.

The tap-room of the tavern was on the corner. This was also the office and all-around room. The dining room was across the hall, and looked out onto the post-road, which is now Third Avenue. People eating in the dining room could peer out through the windows and see riders and vehicles passing well-nigh all the time, because this was the turnpike. It was the highroad to Boston. In that day all the through travel to New York City went by my tavern. Back in my time the tavern was seated on a hill, and you had to go down in order to reach the road. When the city streets were put through, this hill was cut down and a ground floor put in underneath.

Out in the hall, a wide staircase with a mahogany railing led to the second floor. Upstairs the hallways were narrow and crooked. A fellow could get lost in them. In fact these winding passageways, I'm sorry to say, were the cause of a good many fights. The "Bull's Head" was noted for its fine liquors, such as hot "Tom and-Jerry," toddy, and such like. A drover starting upstairs for bed, after spending half the night in the tap-room drinking or playing "crack-loo," would often get lost upstairs in trying to find his room, and sometimes would get so turned around that he couldn't even find his way back to the office. Then from somewheres in an upper hall he'd holler out loud enough to wake the dead. He'd get mad as a Durham bull. He