It may strike the reader that, with so many strings to my bow, and such amusing toys to make, my situation would be considerably improved, but it was not so. Each day, on the contrary, produced fresh trouble in my trade as well as in my household, and I even saw a financial crisis approaching which I found it impossible to prevent.
The cause of this result was very simple. While engaged with the mechanical toys I have just mentioned, I still worked at my theatrical automata, for which my passion had been again aroused by my present labors. Like the gambler, who throws his last farthing on the board, I invested all my earnings in my theatrical preparations, hoping these would soon repay me for my sacrifices with a hundred per cent. profit.
But it was fated that I should no sooner see the realization of my projects close at hand, than an unforseen event should remove it again from my grasp. I had a sum of two thousand francs to pay at the end of the month; I had not a penny to meet it, and I had only three days left before the bill I had accepted became due.
Never did an embarrassment arrive more inopportunely! I had just formed the plan of an automaton in which I placed the greatest hopes. It was a "writing and drawing automaton," answering in writing or emblematic designs questions proposed by the spectators, and I intended to employ this figure between the performances in my future theatre.
Once more was I obliged to check the flight of my imagination to absorb myself in the vulgar and difficult problem of meeting a bill when you have no money. I might, it is true, have saved myself all trouble by applying to my friends, but prudence and delicacy rendered it my duty to pay it from my own resources. Providence, doubtlessly, recognized the merit of my resolution, for she sent me a saving idea.
I had sold several mechanical toys to M. G----, a rich curiosity dealer, who had always treated me with marked kindness. I went to him, and gave him an exact description of my new automaton, and necessity must have rendered me eloquent, for M. G---- was so satisfied that he bought my automaton on the spot, which I bound myself to deliver to him within eighteen months. The price was arranged at five thousand francs, half of which M. G---- agreed to pay me in advance, reserving to himself the right, if I failed, in my promise, of recouping himself by purchasing several of my automatic toys.