Well, all right--don't despair. Other people have been obliged to begin

with less. I have a small idea that may develop into something for us

both, all in good time. Keep your money close and add to it. I'll make

it breed. I've been experimenting (to pass away the time), on a little

preparation for curing sore eyes--a kind of decoction nine-tenths water

and the other tenth drugs that don't cost more than a dollar a barrel;

I'm still experimenting; there's one ingredient wanted yet to perfect the

thing, and somehow I can't just manage to hit upon the thing that's

necessary, and I don't dare talk with a chemist, of course. But I'm

progressing, and before many weeks I wager the country will ring with the

fame of Beriah Sellers' Infallible Imperial Oriental Optic Liniment and

Salvation for Sore Eyes--the Medical Wonder of the Age! Small bottles

fifty cents, large ones a dollar. Average cost, five and seven cents for

the two sizes.

"The first year sell, say, ten thousand bottles in Missouri, seven

thousand in Iowa, three thousand in Arkansas, four thousand in Kentucky,

six thousand in Illinois, and say twenty-five thousand in the rest of the

country. Total, fifty five thousand bottles; profit clear of all

expenses, twenty thousand dollars at the very lowest calculation. All

the capital needed is to manufacture the first two thousand bottles

-say a hundred and fifty dollars--then the money would begin to flow in.

The second year, sales would reach 200,000 bottles--clear profit, say,

75,000--and in the meantime the great factory would be building in St.

Louis, to cost, say, $100,000. The third year we could, easily sell

,000,000 bottles in the United States and----"

The Gilded Age