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28 got the money to pay for the broken stuff than have that happen."

"It was not altogether on account of the broken piece of bric-a-brac," went on Andrew Dilks. "Gulligan has been angry at me for over two weeks—ever since I wouldn't pass off a counterfeit five-dollar bill he had taken in. I said the bill ought to be burned up, but he wouldn't hear of it."

"But now you are out of a job."

"That's true. But I don't much care. Working for him was not easy, and he never paid me my weekly wages of ten dollars until I had asked for it about a dozen times."

"I thought auctioneers made more than that," said Matt. There was something about Andrew Dilks that pleased him, and he was becoming interested in the conversation.

"Most of them do—a good deal more. But Gulligan considered that he had taught me the business, and that I was still under his thumb."

"Why don't you go in business for yourself? It seems to me it would just suit me," said Matt enthusiastically. "I once passed through the town of Rahway, out in New Jersey, and a fellow not much older than you had a big wagon there, and was auctioning stuff off at a great rate—crockery ware, lamps, albums, razors, and a lot more of