A Search for America / by Frederick Philip Grove, e-Ed.2000 -- BOOK II, CHAPTER III.
BOOK TWO. -- THE RELAPSE

CHAPTER III.

I GO ON THE ROAD.

HUS I became a book-agent.
Three of the advertisements marked by my obliging caller were as I found inserted by three different branches of one and the same firm. As it chanced, I called at the three offices in succession. At the first two I was politely refused -- again on account of my English accent. When, late in the afternoon, I called at the third office and found that it, too, represented the same publishing house, I was tempted not to enter at all but to pass it up as hopeless without wasting my time. But somehow it seemed different. The other two had occupied large, expensive-looking quarters on the groundfloor of sumptuous business blocks -- this one was located in a dingy house, upstairs, filling rooms which seemed to be an apartment converted for its present purpose. I made up my mind to try.
The room I entered after knocking held a single occupant, a powerfully built man with singularly sagging features and a few wisps of stray grey hair. When I had introduced myself and stated my errand, he bade me be seated. In spite of my height I felt strangely Slim and insignificant in his presence. His name was Tinker.
I told him at the outset that I had called at the other two offices and had been refused.
He smiled in a superior, disdainful way. "That's nonsense," he said. "Let me reassure you on that point by saying that your English accent will be an advantage to you instead of a drawback. You will be able to interest people all the more readily because you will prick their curiosity."
This way of looking at the matter struck me as at least

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unprejudiced. I told the man just what my situation was and impressed him with the fact that I had to make money at once.

"That's all right," he said. "It will take you a few days to master the canvass. Most of our agents can start on the road within a week or so. If you enter with us, we shall take care of you after that. We give you a drawing account of fifteen dollars a week which will, of course, be deducted from your later earnings. That much we risk. We usually let it go for three weeks. If an agent has not made good by that time, we dismiss him and write off our loss. It happens rarely, though. In your case I feel so confident of your ultimate success that I offer right now to carry you for five weeks. You will not need it; I tell you this merely to give you confidence. You will easily understand that, as a business man, I should not risk seventy-five dollars of my money unless I felt convinced that it will pay me in the end."
"That stands to reason," I replied.
"Very well," he continued. "You know our proposition?"
"No, sir, I don't."
"Now, then, Mr. Branden, just give me your attention."
And suddenly I felt myself swept off my feet, so to speak, listening to a talk delivered with an eloquence, a power of expression, a command over face and voice, ranging from quiet jestfulness to the very peak of soul-shaking pathos, compared with which the performance of my yesternight's caller paled to the stumbling attempt of a mere beginner. While the talk progressed -- taking up about twenty-five minutes -- this hulking man produced, out of the recesses of his clothes, as if from nowhere and by magic, a veritable avalanche of prospectus, illustrations, sample-pages, bindings -- so that, when he arrived at a brief discussion of prices and styles, we were surrounded by a litter of things which looked much more voluminous than it really was because he had stacked everything up in

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the most artful fashion. There were, he said, three styles of bindings in which this phenomenal collection of Travellogues -- for such the books turned out to be -- were sold: buckram, half-leather, and full morocco. They sold all three on the same terms, two dollars down and two a month, the only difference being in the time required for completing payments. And then he drew the formidable order-blank and directed me to sign on the dotted line.

I gasped with relief when I took the pencil and smiled. "I surely must read the books," I said.
"Never," he thundered. "We have found by experience that it is better for the agent not to know the books themselves but only the canvass. Agents are only human, after all; they are apt, if they read them, to wander in their talk and to speak of themselves or of what has struck them, instead of presenting the work as a whole. You must understand we have sold this book, which is the best book ever written on the subject for more than thirty years; in these thirty years we have worked out a canvass which has proved irresistible in the long-run. You must believe us in this, or we cannot use you. Two things are needed for your success. You must feel convinced that never was there a book offered to the public which gave them more for their money and which was of greater educative value; and you must be letter-perfect in your canvass before I shall let you go out."
I pondered that. "Well," I said, "perhaps you know best. I merely thought, if the book is what you say it is, I, having travelled quite a bit myself, might be all the more convinced of its value if I had read it and, therefore, all the more convincing in my talk."
"Yes," he replied, "I know; you would think so; it does not work out. As for the value of the book, let me show you what people who have bought it say of it."
And he pulled from his pocket a sheaf of typewritten testimonials, all speaking in the most glowing terms of the work, all of them written by men of undoubted standing in the business, scientific, or literary world.

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I was amazed. "Well," I said, "if all that is true, as I must assume it to be, I merely wonder why the people don't rush your offices and fight for these volumes?"

"They should," Mr. Tinker said with conviction. "As a matter of fact, the book has sold in millions of copies. But for the last few years we have been reaching out by a house-to-house canvass, all over the United States and Canada, getting at the less well educated classes, the artisans, clerks, mechanics, and even the farmers. You will find that some people still look down upon the book-agent; but you never want to forget that, like the schools, the universities, and the churches, you are doing missionary work."
There was that word again. Missionary work! I smiled. "What is there in it for the agent?" I asked.
"Oh yes," he said and smiled likewise; "I was coming to that. You get a commission on every sale. Eight dollars for a cloth, ten dollars for a half-leather, and twelve dollars for a morocco binding. Every Saturday your orders will be totalled, and every Wednesday after that you will receive your cheque, no matter in what part of the country you may be working."
"And where shall I work?"
"Right here in New York," Mr. Tinker answered promptly. "I will be quite Frank with you. Our still very short acquaintance has convinced me that you are a find for the business. You have the appearance and the address to gain interviews with city people. Such agents are rare. The moment I send you out you begin to draw two and a half dollars a day. You run no risks."
"How many calls does a man have to make in order to make a sale?" I enquired.
Mr. Tinker laughed. "That depends on the man."
"On an average," I insisted.
"There is no average," Mr. Tinker said. "I know a lady who sells a set on every third call and has a pleasant time on the other two. But in the beginning it may take you a week, or two weeks, of hard work to make your first

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sale. It depends on the way in which you get your interview. This is a science, the art of salesmanship; it has to be learned."

I sighed. "I am willing to learn. When can I start?"
"As soon as you know your canvass to the letter."
Another suspicion struck me. "Is there any charge for the outfit?" I asked.
"None whatever," he replied. "This is a legitimate business. Here is a copy of your talk, and here are the various things which you will need. Of course, you must not only know your canvass, but you must also learn to handle your material. You will find the most detailed directions in this little book."
Mr. Tinker made up a neat little parcel for me. "Well," he said at last, "get after the canvass, Mr. Branden. And when you know it thoroughly, come back. You will find me any time from nine till six except for one hour at noon."
"So long, " I said.
We shook hands, and I left.
To Mr. Tinker's surprise I returned to his office the next afternoon and, at his request, gave him the canvass, though not with any great dramatic power, yet with a quiet persuasive conviction and an unhesitating knowledge of the lines which delighted him.
"Now, Mr. Branden," he said, "I am going to let you go out at once. But I beg of you, stick to the canvass. It is the everlasting temptation of the agent to put in little pieces of his own; don't you do it. For one reason, we have to guard against misrepresentation. We insist on our agents not knowing the books, as I have explained before; every word in the canvass is true; so long as you follow it word for word, we can always back you up. Many and many an agent has had to be dropped from our forces because he could not resist the temptation and got himself into trouble where we could not stand behind him. They said things which amounted to misrepresentation. We shall require you from time to time to give us your canvass. We shall help you in all your difficulties and

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guide you as much as we can; we ask only one thing in return: that you honestly report to us from day to day about your work. For the first two or three weeks I shall ask you to report to me personally every evening at six o'clock."

And he proceeded to give me further directions. He advised me to set myself a definite number of calls for the day, say thirty, never to go outside the territory assigned, so as not to encroach upon the rights of other agents; to relax completely between interviews; always to ask for the lady of the house; never to state my business before I was seated with my interlocutor, nor to let anything of my prospectuses and papers be seen about my person before I had started upon my talk; never to allow the person interviewed to get in a word while I was launched upon the canvass; and so to control my voice and "magnetism" as to be most hypnotic towards the end.
"We have reduced the selling of this book to a science," he repeated. "Do not expect any great success in the bargaining; but if you follow directions, you cannot help winning success in the end. It is merely a question of perseverance."
Little needs to be said about the actual work during my beginnings. I started out on a certain straggling street in the upper Bronx -- a poor-looking neighbourhood. When I returned to the office after the first day's work, I was completely exhausted and all but hopeless. The reason for this hopelessness will presently appear.
"Well," Mr. Tinker greeted me with a smile, "how many calls did you make to-day?"
"Exactly thirty," I replied, "as you advised."
"Good. And how many interviews did you obtain?"
"Eighteen."
"Excellent," Mr. Tinker praised. "But, of course, you got no orders."
"'No," I said; "still, I have two prospects. I talked two ladies into such a pitch of enthusiasm that they asked

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me to return to-morrow morning. They simply had to persuade their husbands first."

"And they asked you to leave a sample page?"
"Yes," I replied, rather surprised.
Mr. Tinker laughed. "Well," he said, "you can, of course, do as you please if you want to get your own experience. But if you will believe me, don't call back. I've been in this business since I was a mere boy; I yet have to see an order coming from a back-call. Let me explain. Books are among the remote luxuries, according to the views of our middle-class people. Once they start to talk things over, other things seem to be so much more urgently needed, a sewing machine, a gramophone, a carpet-sweeper. While you are there, two dollars a month seems a trifle; as soon as you are gone, they see only the total of sixty dollars."
I was taken aback. "Well, it strikes me that, considering the people I have been calling on, they are right," I said, not without hesitation.
"Nonsense," Mr. Tinker replied with great emphasis. "You could have got those orders. No woman in the United States needs to talk things over with her husband. If you make her want the books badly enough, she will give the order. Never forget that these books mean an education for those people. You know better what is good for them than they do. That is the spirit which you want to get. But I'll tell you. There was another way of getting those orders. Suppose that you feel you have missed the psychological moment of pressing the matter home with the woman and that she has started to talk of her husband. Get the address of the man's business place; let her give you a slip of introduction to him. See him before he has a chance to talk to his wife, and play up to his fondness for her and the children if there are any."
"But, Mr. Tinker," I objected, "quite a few people convinced me to-day that it would be foolish for them to put money into books. Surely you don't want me to

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press the matter when I can only too clearly see their point of view."

Mr. Tinker laughed; a trifle unpleasantly, I thought. Then he controlled himself. "'The affairs of the people you interview are their own outlook. You have nothing to do with them. It is your business to get the order. How they are going to pay for it, that you can safely leave to them and to us."
I got up.
"Stick to your canvass," Mr. Tinker repeated, somewhat more pleasantly; "do as you did to-day, and the orders will come. Above all, do not weaken in closing. Always think of the untold hours of clean, wholesome pleasure you are bringing to people who know nothing but work. Think of the winter evenings around the lamp. There's pleasure and profit for father and mother, and no end of it for the kiddies."
It was only much later that I understood how masterfully and expertly Mr. Tinker played upon me and my sentimental sensibilities. As a matter of fact, his last words left me with something to think over all evening and all night. That very day, though I did not know it, my education had begun; I had had the first look-in upon humble families, striving to do their level best in the fight for a living; I had understood them and sympathized with them. More than once had I felt that I might have succeeded; I had done what to-day I consider the typical thing to do under the conditions of democratic freedom: I had sacrificed my personal advantage to what I considered best for others; I had desisted.
Mr. Tinker did not know that. After what I had heard him say I did not care to speak about the real trouble I had encountered. As a matter of fact, when I went to his office, I had half made up my mind to tell him all about it and to part with him then and there. Only the two prospects which I had kept me from doing so at the outset. In spite of what he had said I was still determined to call back. But his parting shot was a psychological master

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stroke. Maybe this talk about "missionary work" was not all cant. Maybe there was something in it, after all. I could well imagine how children would delight in looking at the more than eight thousand pictures that the set boasted of; how their pleasure would be reflected upon the parents; how the parents would be beguiled into reading; how the children would listen and take a new interest in their geography! And what were two dollars a month to people who, none of them, so it seemed, were making less than a hundred dollars a month?

So I kept at it. I called back at the two houses to which I had promised to return. Mr. Tinker was right. I was not even asked to come in but told at the door that it would be useless.
A whole week went by, and in spite of hard work I had no order. But still that last vision, summoned by Mr. Tinker at the end of my first report, persisted. Mr. Tinker promptly gave me a cheque for fifteen dollars; and after I had accepted it, I felt under an obligation to stay with him till it was repaid. But I began to think of a change. I felt that I was in the wrong surroundings; that I did not really have a chance to make good where I was working. So, one day during the second week, I broached the matter to Mr. Tinker.
"I wish," I said to him, "you would send me elsewhere."
"But why?" he objected. "You are getting the interviews; you have the approach. Women do not refuse to listen to you. That is where most of our agents are weak. That's why we have to send them into small towns where people are glad to welcome the stranger. You are weak on closing. You have to overcome that."
"I can't," I replied. "Here I see only people who have their own troubles. They tell me about them."
"But you don't want to listen," Mr. Tinker exclaimed, exasperated. "You are there to talk, not to listen. Just give me your canvass. Let me hear how you work."
I did.
"That is excellent," he praised when I finished; "that

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is exceptionally good. I can't see why you are not getting the orders. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll go with you to-morrow morning till we land an order. You give the canvass; I'll do the closing."

My eye lighted up. "Very well," I said. "Shall I call for you here?"
Mr. Tinker and I interviewed an old lady. It was a small, a very modest household. We were ushered into a stuffy, little parlour that spoke of desperate efforts at keeping up the appearances of genteel respectability. On one wall I noticed a framed diploma; the rest of the wallspace was scattered over with a multitudinous arrangement of faded photographs.
The old lady, unmistakably Irish -- from her speech and her kindly, round, wrinkled face under the crocheted white bonnet -- listened to my forceful talk with a wistful, benevolent smile which had something reminiscent in it.
When I finished and was pulling out the folder with the leather-backs of the bindings, she began in an enthusiastic tone, "Oh, how my daughter . . ."
But Mr. Tinker, taking the folder out of my hand, interrupted her. "Just a moment, madam," he said and rose, towering above her. "You have a daughter -- a teacher, as I see by the diploma here on the wall.
The old lady beamed.
"It is for her that I am speaking. Now listen. Don't say a word to her till the books are here. I know you will be impatient to get them. Usually it takes a week to deliver a set; but in your case we shall make an extra effort and get them here by to-night. They will come in a box, of course. You open this box and get it out of the way before your daughter comes home. And here, on this little table . . ." He flipped the folder open and set it up while he was towering above her. ". . . Here you place the whole set and let her discover it. Just think of her joy! Every one of these volumes is bound in full morocco. Every one of the twenty volumes contains four hundred pages of delightful reading. Every page contains at least

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one illustration besides the many full-page plates. There, look at it; that is the way the set will stand. No teacher can afford to be without it. I know, it is quite a task to bring up a young girl to be a teacher." -- His voice became a whisper, tender, caressing, confidential. "You have had your many years of struggle to do it. Now you have done it, and at last you are going to do for her this last one thing." Beaming, he worked up to a climax, raising his voice. "You are going to give her this set. And I'll tell you, madam." At this point he pulled out the order blanks, laying them down in front of the old lady; and as he went on, he lowered his voice to a whisper again. "The best of it is that I, too, can do something for you. I am going to make you the easiest terms that I am allowed to make; two dollars down and two a month." He did not even tell her the total. "Just put your name down here, please . . . no, on this line. . . . Thank you, madam. And now, if you have two dollars handy. . . "

With trembling fingers she began to count out quarters and dimes, from a worn-out pocketbook, while Mr. Tinker went on talking, talking.
"Oh, believe me, madam, I know what it means to do things for our children; I know the reward, too; the happy smile, the gleaming eye, a tear, and a kiss on the mother's cheek -- and never a word! Thanks, madam. Good-by, and congratulations."
With amazing agility he had gathered all our paraphernalia and was pushing me out, ahead of himself, frowning with impatience as I delayed.
As soon as we were in the street, he relaxed; his powerful shoulders sagged; he took a deep breath.
Then he laughed. "Well," he said, "do you see? That was an easy one, of course. Slick as pulling a tooth. We'll split the commission, Branden. Now go and get half a dozen more."
I did not go on that morning. I remember it as if it had been yesterday instead of three decades ago. I went

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to Riverside Park, above the Hudson, feeling at outs with myself and the world.

Missionary work, indeed!
I still see myself, stopping for a moment at the huge foundations of the Library of Columbia University which at the time was building. Here was one of America's great institutions, one of its universities, being erected at a cost of millions of dollars; I had just witnessed how money was extracted from the trembling fingers of bashful poverty. I cried with shame and humiliation when I flung myself down on some bench in the park.
My whole life passed in review before my mind. This seemed a time for great, decisive resolutions. What could I do? There seemed to be some external power which shuffled men about as you shuffle a deck of cards. I had left beaten tracks; I was in the control of some merciless, gigantic machine. Useless to fight! If only I could lie down and die! Nobody would miss me, nobody would suffer if I disappeared. On the contrary, I should leave the way clear for others. If I could make a living only by taking it from others, would it not be better not to make it at all that living and to resign myself? But it was not easy to find a way to do even that.
It was late in the year. The last leaves were falling; most of the trees stood still and bare in the clear, sun-saturated December air. But for me, like a veil of dark-coloured mist, there lay gloom over the landscape, over the river, the park, the heights on the opposite bank. All the ostentation of pride and wealth in this great city looked like a hollow show -- like the powdered and painted face of a woman of the street who hides despair and shame behind the smile of effrontery.
I thought of what I had witnessed. "Slick as pulling a tooth."
One after another three pictures arose before my mental vision. A cat, crouched low at the edge of a pond in which fishes are playing, glistening in the beams of the sun; the cat reaches out with incredible swiftness of paw; one

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of the beautiful creatures flies up, out of the water, on to the bank; the very next moment it wriggles and writhes between the cat's teeth. -- A hawk, sweeping down upon a bare spot between bushes and striking its talons into the quivering flesh of a chick which gives the universal cry of agonized death. -- A snake, coiled up in a ditch, and a toad hopping inadvertently near; the next moment the toad fights and pulls and strains against the suck in the mouth of the snake; for the snake, changed suddenly into a fury of wiry, writhing lust, has struck and caught its hindfeet. -- These sights I had seen on my rambles in Westchester county. Especially vivid was the horror of the toad's fight against the jaws of the snake.

While looking on when Mr. Tinker had "closed" the sale, I had intercepted a little involuntary unconscious motion of helpless revolt on the part of the old lady; and that little twitch of her delicate, trembling, nearly transparent hand had somehow reminded me with a strange, incomprehensible distinctness of the death-fight of fish, chick, toad. Like fish, chick, toad she had given in; she did not stand a chance!
If that was America, then let my curses ring out over America! I was neither cat, hawk, nor snake!
What was America then? Graft and cruelty, nothing else! Frank and Hannan and Howard on one side Carlton and Tinker with their smug self-sufficiency on the other!
What could I do? Leave Tinker? I owed him fifteen dollars!
"Well," said Mr. Tinker gaily when I entered his office that evening. "How many orders?"
"None, of course," I replied. "Look here, Mr. Tinker. I did not make another call this morning. No, nor this afternoon, either. I cannot do this work. Not in this way. I come, fully determined to leave you right now unless you give me a chance to work where I can see a different class of people. I cannot foist this thing on to helpless women who cannot afford it. Give me a class of

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people that can afford sixty-dollar sets of books; and I'll undertake to sell them. But here, in the district to which you are sending me, I must refuse to go on with the work."

Mr. Tinker looked at me for some time in silence, a frown on the huge expanse of his fleshy face.
"All right," he said at last. "I shall send you out to the Plains. I have a crew working there, under the direction of a lady-manager, Mrs. McMurchy. Report to her as soon as you get there. I shall write down her address for you. I shall speak to her to-night over the telephone, and she will arrange for lodging and board. After this you will have to report to her and to follow her instructions. You have been a disappointment to me. But maybe it will be for the best that way. You will have company in the evenings, too."

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