HEN I arrived at White Plains, some time before noon, I looked Mrs. McMurchy up at once and found her at the address which Mr. Tinker had given me.
She received me in the small, dusky parlor of a private house where she and her whole little crew of agents had found accommodation.
The light in the room was bad; it was not easy to form an accurate first impression. Besides, the lady took apparent care to have what light there was fall full on my face and to keep herself in the shade. She struck me, however, as being at least fifty-five years old; she was medium-sized, very dark of complexion, with heavy features which reminded me of Mr. Tinker's sagging facial muscles, and with strangely strong and prominent lips. Her manners were carefully, studiously polite and smooth. No doubt she was expecting me.
"Mr. Branden, I suppose?" she said and gave me a large, bony, and bejewelled hand which for the fraction of a second lay limp in my fingers.
"Mr. Tinker phoned me last night," she said. "Unfortunately, we are just winding up here at White Plains. We intend to move to Pleasantville to-morrow. It is nearly lunch-time. If you will take your meal with us, you will meet the other members of the crew, and we can see after that what to do."
Since the last sentence was spoken with a questioning inflection, I replied, "With pleasure."
"Mr. Tinker told me that you know the canvass, that you have been working, and that you have no difficulty in getting your interviews?"

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"None whatever," I said.
"In that case," she went on, "it is a pity that you should leave New York. However, I shall be delighted to have you with us. I understand, the difficulty is in closing."
"It is," I said with a slight hesitation. "But permit me to be a trifle more explicit, Mrs. McMurchy. It might save you further disappointments."
"I shall be glad to hear whatever you may have to say," said my interlocutor with a smile.
"My difficulties," I began to explain, "are not so much of a practical as of an ethical nature. When I see that taking an order would submit the person interviewed to hardships, I cannot do it. Mr. Tinker went out with me yesterday and obtained an order which I should not have taken because it seemed morally wrong to take it."
Mrs. McMurchy gasped with horror. "But Mister Branden," she exclaimed, emphasizing every syllable, "how can you say such a thing? Mr. Tinker and doing wrong! Impossible altogether! I see from that what your trouble is. You are not sufficiently convinced of the value of the thing you are selling. You do not feel strongly enough that you are doing missionary work."
I smiled a weary smile. This, I felt, was mere cant.
"I am afraid," I replied, "that nothing can convince me that a set of books, however valuable, can feed a hungry mouth or clothe a shivering body. Nor shall I ever be able to hypnotize anybody into buying what he does not want. I am constitutionally unable to see wherein lies the missionary part of the fact that I am in need of commissions. If I did this work free of charge, it would be different; as it is, I cannot forget that I ask the person interviewed to pay two dollars a month for from four to six months in order to pay me for my trouble."
I looked with inviting frankness into the lady's face. She smiled, but avoided my look.
"Your conscience is of a delicacy which I have never yet found in an agent," she said. "I believe that you will get over that. I am beginning to see why Mr. Tinker

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said that he believed you to be a find for the business. I hope I shall convince you that the business is a find for you."
At this moment the house-door opened and closed. At once Mrs. McMurchy was on her feet.
"Just a moment," she said, and stepped into the door of the parlour, beckoning to a fat old lady who had just entered the hall.
This old lady, short, stout, white-haired, looked up at me with a seductive smile on a face which was most artfully rouged and powdered. The effect was startling. Every motion of hers betrayed her age; she must have been over sixty; her hand trembled as she welcomed me on my being introduced to her; but her face was made up to an appearance of the most innocent youthfulness.
"Mrs. Coldwell," I heard Mrs. McMurchy name her; "one of our most successful agents."
Mrs. Coldwell's face was lighted by a winning smile. Then she turned to Mrs. McMurchy, and her smile, without disappearing, underwent a change; there was cunning in it, now, and triumph, also.
"I have an order," she said, "and a good one, too; for the half-leather set; from Mr. Regan, the banker."
"I'm very glad indeed, on your account, my dear," said Mrs. McMurchy and put her hand caressingly on her shoulder.
I had to suppress a smile; for in spite of the friendly tone in which these two women conversed I could sense a bitter rivalry, yes, animosity, between them.
The door went again.
"And here," continued Mrs. McMurchy, "is the rest of our little crew. Come in, Miss Henders; come in, Mr. Ray. Meet Mr. Branden, a new member of our crowd."
Miss Henders was a pretty little Jewess, neatly, though inexpensively dressed, with forward eyes, a face which could not conceal her emotions, and manners and movements which jarred a little on my sensibilities.
Mr. Ray was a tall and slender young man, hardly out of his boyhood yet, with easy movements and dark, flowing

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hair. His brown eyes which showed a peculiarly penetrating and cheerful lustre won him my instant sympathies.
All three appraised me with furtive glances while they were exchanging small talk and banter.
"Any luck, child?" asked Mrs. McMurchy patronizingly from the little Jewess.
"No-o," she pouted in a voice which was a trifle loud. "The sun shines too bright; suckers don't bite."
Everybody laughed, with the exception of Mrs. McMurchy who frowned instead.
"This town has been drained," Mr. Ray threw in. "It's time to move."
"Yes," exclaimed Miss Henders, "we've done this town; let's do the next."
"Miss Henders," gasped Mrs. McMurchy, her indignation becoming vocal, "how can you speak that way! I can well see why you are not getting the orders. "
"Nonsense," replied Miss Henders, "I don't get orders because you send me to women. Women antagonize me, and I antagonize them. Give me the business-men whom I can jolly along. I can't sell the books; but I can always sell myself."
"Miss Henders!" Mrs. McMurchy exclaimed again, this time more sharply, and glancing at me with a significant look.
"Well", Miss Henders broke off, "I hope dinner is ready. I am as hungry as a bear."
And all three bustled upstairs to their rooms.
Mrs. McMurchy turned to me. "I have not been able to make arrangement for a room for you, Mr. Branden. I suppose you will have to stay at the hotel overnight. But your meals you can take with us if you like. As I said, we shall move to Pleasantville to-morrow; and there I have engaged room and board. We shall get there for dinner. I suppose you would prefer not to start work until we have moved?"
"On the contrary," I replied; "if you can let me have an address or two, I should like to make a few calls this

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afternoon, just to see how things are in the smaller town. Provided I do not encroach upon other agents' rights."
"Very well," she replied and followed the others upstairs.
I was anxious to see how the other members of this crew felt about their work and their outlook; and when, after partaking of their lunch, I was ready to go out and -- much against Mrs. McMurchy's wishes -- fell in at the door with Miss Henders, I joined her.
"If you have some distance to go, Miss Henders," I said in holding the door for her, "and do not dislike a companion . . . "
"Not at all," she said, "come along."
We walked for a while in silence.
"I suppose you are quite an expert in this business, Mr. Branden?" she asked at length.
I laughed. "Not exactly," I said, "I have been trying to get my first order and failed so far."
"Is that so?" she asked with a sidelong glance from her beady black eyes.
"Yes," I said; "I have just arrived in this country; and I am trying to find a way of making a living."
"Is that so?" she repeated. "Well, I don't want to discourage you. But why don't you rather try something else?"
"Nobody, so it seems, has any use for my services. I am going to try this thing out. The trouble is, I can't bring myself to wrest an order from people who should put their money into necessaries rather than into luxuries like books."
She laughed. "That doesn't worry me. I need the money, and if I could see the people, I'd take the orders, no matter how poor they are. They are not as poor as I am."
A short silence ensued.
"Well," I said at last, "at least you don't talk about missionary work."
She laughed. "No," she said; "that's all nonsense.

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Most of the people to whom we sell get along quite comfortably without the books. I am frank at least. I want the commissions."
"If it is not intruding," I said, hesitating, "might I ask you how many orders the average agent gets in a week?"
"Oh, I don't know," she replied. "I do know that I work as hard as anybody, and that I am always in debt to the Company. I draw ten dollars a week, and though I sometimes take two orders or sell a morocco set, at other times I get no orders at all; and so there is always a balance against me. Fare, board, and laundry cost from seven to eight dollars a week; and I cannot dress for less than two or three, no matter how careful I am."
"And is it the same with Mrs. Coldwell and Mr. Ray?"
"Pretty much," she replied. "The worst of it is, if we do get an extra order now and then, suddenly one of the old orders, taken weeks ago, goes bad; that sets us back again.
"Goes bad?" I repeated.
"Yes," she explained. "When the books arrive, people refuse to take them in. They've got cold feet meanwhile."
"I see," I said pensively; for by intuition I understood the slang expression.
"Still," she went on, "you may have better luck. Mrs. McMurchy is always telling us of agents who buy cars or homes with their commissions. It may not be all hot air."
I did not feel exactly encouraged by what I had learned.
We separated; and I began to look for the addresses at which I was to call. I had three of them; they were all on the same street; three large residences, looking out, with an air of aloofness, over well-kept lawns that were now withered and dried by the onset of winter. I passed them without going in.
The air was crisp and invigorating; the sun, already advanced on the western half of its short winter arc.

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Something of that spirit which had guided me during my previous rambles in Westchester county came over me. There was satisfaction in merely stretching my legs and swinging along. I followed the street on which I was till I reached the open country. A slight icy breeze made my cheeks tingle with its frost, and a feeling of health pervaded me, an animal satisfaction, as it were, to the exclusion of all thought. I entered the woods, without knowing where I was, and I walked, drinking in the air, and with it oblivion, till a feeling of happy weariness came over me. Just at the time when the sun which I saw behind the trees, as if through black bars, touched the horizon, I came to a clearing occupied by a well-kept farmyard. The shadows were rising; a smoky haze lay over the buildings. They seemed huddled, as if for warmth and shelter, against the forest. From behind a building the happy shouts and the laughter of children sounded across. In front of myself I saw a well, and suddenly I felt that I was thirsty.
At the well sat a man. His attitude was expressive of the weariness of physical toil. I approached, and he turned. His face radiated satisfaction and glowed from the work he had left.
"Good evening," I greeted; my voice was hushed by the beauty of the scene. "May I get a drink?"
"Certainly, help yourself," he said. "Wait, I'll get a cup."
"This will do," I replied, picking up a rusty tin cup.
"Look at that," the man said suddenly, without turning, waving an arm against the landscape.
Coal-black stood the forest; in the sky beyond, a dark, lustreless red shaded off through purple and amber into green.
I sat down beside the man. A few more words were passed back and forth. We spoke like old acquaintances; there was no need of introductions. We both were men, face to face with Nature.
A silence fell.

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At last I smiled at him and said, "I have something that might interest you."
"That so?" he asked, "What is it?"
"Books," I replied, violating all Mr. Tinker's rules.
"What kind?"
And I began to tell him about the set in my own way, slowly leading over into the regular canvass. I had gone on for five minutes, when he rose. I stopped.
"Come in," he said. "Let's go into the house. I want my wife to hear that."
We entered a large, simply but solidly furnished room, a combined dining and living room. The man lighted a lamp suspended over the large extension table. From the adjoining kitchen came the clatter of dishes. He offered me a chair and went out. In two or three minutes he returned with a tall, bony, but pleasant-looking matron, her face flushed from the heat of the stove.
"Well," said the man with a smile "shoot, will you? But start it over, please."
And I began the canvass once more, I sitting, husband and wife standing in front of me, bent over the table, their large, hard hands resting on its top. I gave an excellent canvass, quiet, convincing, never hesitating for a second. I had gone half through it when, with a great noise and much laughter, two children burst into the room. A look from the mother, reproving, but not too sternly, silenced them; and they joined the group of listeners. The boy's eyes shone. I saw he devoured the illustrations which I showed with eager eyes. I also noticed that the father began to watch him with a humorous expression, and that the mother smiled.
When I had finished, I did not go on; I produced neither order blanks nor testimonials; I rested my case; I leaned back and looked at the group.
"Gee-whiz!" exclaimed the boy, "That's some book! Daddy, I'd like to have that."
"You kids get out of here," replied the father with mock severity. "Quick! This is business."

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Reluctantly the children obeyed.
Man and wife looked at each other.
"Would be nice for the children;" said the mother.
"Would be nice for you," the man replied.
"And for you!" she added.
We all three burst out laughing.
The man looked at me. "How much?"
"Sixty dollars," I said, "in full morocco. Easy terms."
"Never mind about the terms," he said. "I'll give you a cheque for ten dollars; balance on delivery. That satisfactory?"
"Entirely, " I replied; and while I made the necessary entries in an order blank, he wrote the cheque.
When he had signed the order, I rose to go.
"Won't you stay for supper?" invited the woman.
"Well," I replied, "I did not go out for business; I went for a walk and fell in with your husband. I suppose it's time for me to get back to town."
"That's all right," said the farmer. "I'll hitch up and take you in. Better stay for supper. It's just about ready, I suppose?"
"I was on the point of setting the table," she said.
When, two hours or so later, I entered the parlor where Mrs. McMurchy had received me in the morning I found her and Mrs. Coldwell ensconced in a rocker and an easy-chair respectively, reading. Young Ray was playing checkers with the little Jewess. I stopped in the door. Mrs. Coldwell had drawn her feet up under her body and sat there, huddled together like the handful of old, comfort-loving humanity which she was; the young pair were laughing and chattering away; and in the stately, presiding manner of Mrs. McMurchy's I could not help seeing, with a smile, something of the watchful attitude of a brood-hen with her flock.
She was the first one to look up, "Ah, Mr. Branden," she said with a searching look, "did you have your supper? It is rather late."

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I felt the reproach in her voice, carefully controlled though it was; she did not approve of my late hours.
I smiled. "Yes, thanks. I've had my supper. I'm just coming in from work."
By this time four pairs of eyes were focused on me; I, not without a sense of the dramatic, slowly drew the order from my pocket, with the cheque attached, and laid it down before Mrs. McMurchy.
"No!" shouted Miss Henders petulantly. "Don't tell us you've got an order."
"Why, Mr. Branden," Mrs. McMurchy said, rising as soon as she had perused the blank to shake hands with me, "this is splendid! You put our young people to shame, I must say. A cash-order, too; for the full morocco binding!"
"What's that?" asked Mrs. Coldwell, not without a touch of envy. "Let me see that bird of paradise! You are starting in well, I declare!" With a trembling hand she reached for the order.
Young Ray said nothing; but his eyes smiled at me.
"I suppose, you know," remarked Mrs. McMurchy, "that a cash-order nets you sixteen dollars?"
"I'm glad," I said; "I did not know it."
"That shows you, young people," she said, turning to Miss Henders and Ray; "the orders are there. I gave Mr. Branden only three cards . . ."
"Well," I broke in, "but I called at none of the addresses. I just took a walk; I was thirsty; I met a man at a well, out in the country; I started my canvass, and I sold him."
"He's sold all right!" exclaimed Miss Henders with a harsh laugh. Apparently this young girl could not refrain from giving expression to her cynical views.
Mrs. McMurchy looked at her with the eye of reproof. Then she turned to me again. "And ten dollars down!" she said. "That shows that the order will stand."
"Oh, the order is good," I said; "but that I got it was mere chance."

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"Talk of luck!" Miss Henders could not keep herself from addressing the ceiling.
The next day -- it was a Saturday -- we moved to Pleasantville, and I started to work on the same footing with the three other members of our crew. By Wednesday, when our cheques arrived, I had not taken another order though I probably had made more calls and given a better canvass than any of the rest. My cheque was for fifteen dollars, which left me in debt to the amount of eight dollars. In one way the work was less unpleasant than it had been in the Bronx. At mealtimes and during the long hours of the evening I had company. I doubt whether there is -- that of teachers and doctors excepted -- any other occupation in the world that is so conducive to "talking shop" as that of the book-agent. I know there is none in which "the blues" are as common.
Strange to say, I soon assumed in this little crew the part of the comforter. The reason lay in the fact that I had no difficulty whatever in obtaining interviews and that, on the whole, they came off pleasantly. That, too, is easily explained. I did not work up to a dramatic closing. I did not feel angry with the people interviewed if they told me, after listening to my canvass, of their own troubles and worries and forgot all about the books. I even remember a case in which I actually refused to accept an order. I had canvassed a young woman who liked the books and longed to have them. But she had listened to me with every now and then an absent-minded look creeping into her eyes as if, against her will, a different, deeper worry kept her occupied. When I wound up, I sat back, as was my custom, and smiled an encouraging smile. I was ready for her side of the matter. And soon it all came out. The little house was neatly and newly furnished. The woman's husband was a printer, making good wages; they had been married a couple of years. But the furniture had been bought on the instalment plan, property-rights remaining with the firm that had sold it. Two babies had arrived; sickness had inter-

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vened; they had fallen in arrears with their payments and had twice been threatened with the loss of their things unless they settled immediately. But, feeling in the wrong as they did, they had not done anything about it and considered that such a loss would be only what was coming to them as a consequence of their bad luck. They had not even written to the firm. I felt very worldliwise as compared with this little family of nest-builders. I told the woman they must write and fully explain their situation; no doubt their creditors would be reasonable enough, provided they felt that they were dealing with honest people. I even wrote the letter, so her husband would only have to sign it. And when I had done that much for them, she felt that she was under an obligation to add fifty or sixty dollars to the debts of the household by buying my books. I laughed, refused to listen, shook hands, and left.
At the dinner-table I told this story to the crew; and for several minutes I had to submit to all manner of jests, for none of the other agents would have despised the order.
One of the first things I found out at Pleasantville was that we were going over the same territory for the third time. Mrs. McMurchy had a list, supposed to be complete, of those who owned the set. From telephone directories and personal enquiry she made up the new lists of people to be called on. I soon saw that the previous canvasses had pretty well exhausted the number of possible buyers. This, however, instead of discouraging me, made me feel that probably all I needed was the right kind of a new proposition in order to be quite successful at the business. I began to think of leaving the company.
I pondered a good deal about the cases of my colleagues. Mrs. McMurchy, who saw that I became the centre of the little circle -- cheering, entertaining, encouraging, and correcting them -- withdrew more and more to follow her favourite pastime of resting up. Two or three times I intervened in a quarrel between her and Mrs.

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Coldwell who accused her of giving her the poorest prospects to call on. More than once I pooled my cards with those of Mrs. Coldwell and asked her to pick whatever she liked, pretending that it did not matter to me on whom I called and that I could take orders whenever I really needed them.
The trouble arose from the fact that Mrs. McMurchy refused to divide the territory by streets, alleging that such a proceeding would involve an injustice to all concerned. One agent might get a good residential neighbourhood the other, perhaps, a street of poor labourers' huts. If she had really known anything about the people she sent us to, her plan might have been capable of execution. But, owing to her indolence, her knowledge was a mere pretence; which was proved by the fact that at least one-third of the addresses handed out were erroneous; people had moved, in town or out of town; occasionally we hunted a person for hours and hours, only to find in the end that he had been dead for the last year or two -- an exasperating experience when you are told that your success depends on the number of calls you make in a day.
But still, even this inconvenience, frequent as the complaints arising from it were, seemed only a trifle.
The real reason for the lack of harmony between the two women lay in that profound, deep-rooted rivalry which I had felt as soon as I had seen them together. It was constitutional; they could not stand each other. I believe if they had met in a desert, both starving, both at the point of death, they would, before lying down for their last rest, have fought each other to their heart's content.
Both these women had once been married; both had been book agents ever since their husbands died. Both had, whether before or after that catastrophe, acquired a certain veneer of manners which covered up their primitive natures; but if it had not been for that and for the fact that they were not alone in the world, they would have flown into each other's faces and scratched each other's eyes out whenever they met.

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Mrs. McMurchy was the daughter of a farmer in Virginia; Mrs. Coldwell was the fatherless daughter of an actress. Mrs. McMurchy asserted proudly that her ancestors had been a family of slave-holders-you know the type; most of them came over in the Mayflower, too and to have had a slaveholder among your forebears marks you as "quality-folk". Mrs. Coldwell, however, said -- secretly, of course, "Look at her lips and her complexion! She comes from coloured people! Slave-holders, well, I guess! Slaves, she means!"
On the other hand, Mrs. Coldwell stoutly averred that her parents had been married, her father having been a proud but poor Englishman. Mrs. McMurchy whispered -- confidentially, of course -- that she knew for a fact that her mother had been a Miss even when she died.
As for their marriages, Mrs. McMurchy had been living on her father's farm when she met her future husband; Mrs. Coldwell admitted that she herself had been an actress, to which Mrs. McMurchy added -- sotto voce -- "A chorus-girl."
Mrs. McMurchy vaguely described her deceased lord and master as a railroad official in a responsible position which Mrs. Coldwell interpreted by saying, "A section-boss". Mr. Coldwell, on the other hand, had been a mining engineer; and his widow -- this was the sorest of all sore points -- could prove it by documentary evidence. Both husbands had lost their lives in railroad accidents; Mr. McMurchy -- according to Mrs. Coldwell who had never seen him, neither dead nor alive -- being run over in a fog by a flyer while setting a switch; Mr. Coldwell -- and again, unfortunately for Mrs. McMurchy's peace of mind, his widow held proof of the fact -- having been in his sleeper when the train on which he travelled ran into a freight train and telescoped together.
And now Mrs. McMurchy was manager of a crew with an exclusive territory, a position which vaguely connected her with the capitalistic and idle class of the upper ten thousand; and she gave orders to Mrs. Coldwell who

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revenged herself for the crying injustice of it all by hinting darkly that she and Mr. Tinker had only one soul between them; and that they were very likely also one flesh.
Mrs. Coldwell, however, had no ambition. She frankly acknowledged that she could not have managed anything, not even a dog; whereas Mrs. McMurchy had the matronly, brood-hen dignity which imposes on most people and which -- in women -- is called executive ability.
Miss Henders, Ray, and myself sided with Mrs. Coldwell. She seemed so helpless, her outlook so hopeless. For me she was a mere child of seventy -- wilful, silly, vain, and conceited -- yet lovable on the whole. On Miss Henders she made a strong impression with ancient photographs of her husband and the big house which she had owned in California -- she had lost it, together with ten thousand dollars of life-insurance, in some wild-cat mining scheme. Even the worthless share-certificates filled Miss Henders with awe.
This seemed to me all the stranger since Miss Henders was not only an American, but, according to her statements, a socialist. She was a curious product of city-slum America. To see her act, you would have thought her a "flirt" of the purest water, and by no means particular about the object of her flirtations. To hear her talk of "free love" and similar things, you would have taken her for a depraved young lady; for, at least intellectually, sullied beyond repair. Yet, as I convinced myself by and by, she was innocence herself, utterly unconscious of the dangers into the midst of which she walked as if she were brazenly exulting in her lack of prejudice. Besides, she was passionately, despairingly in love with young Ray who could not stand her. If he had left the company, as he was always on the point of doing, she would have "gone to pieces" together.
As for Ray, he thought he had found in myself a friend from whom he expected the greatest things. He wanted to be an artist, a draughtsman; and he had one of the rarest gifts that I have ever run across. We spent a good

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many hours in talk; at my advice he read many books; he seemed convinced that I helped him in various ways which remained mysterious to me. I met him again -- he has since left his mark in American Art -- and later it became clear to me that at the time he was in what I might call his incubation-period. Of him we shall hear more.
Here were three people, strangely assorted; like myself they openly vowed that what they were doing was not of their choosing; and they were Americans!
Christmas came during this first week. Mrs. McMurchy went to New York; she left the management of our crew in my hands, feeling no doubt that in the petty warfare of this little crowd I represented something like a neutral. For two days I handed out the cards, verified an order taken by Mrs. Coldwell -- which seemed insecure -- resolved difficulties, and decided disputes.
Meanwhile I was just beginning to worry again on my own account when two new orders fell to my share. Again I had one afternoon given up the attempt and walked out of town into the open country. It was after the first big snowfall of the winter, and the glitter and sparkle all over the landscape was more than I could resist. Again I walked on for miles and miles till I felt honestly tired. And at last I reached a big, residential estate -- a mansion built on the hillside whence it looked out over the soft contours of the rolling woods. Close to the road stood -- old-country fashion -- a lodge where probably the caretaker or the gardener lived.
This lodge I resolved to enter.
A pleasant ruddy-cheeked young woman, surrounded by a crowd of children, came to the door to enquire what I wished. I stated that I had been walking, that I was tired and thirsty and begged to be allowed to rest near the fire and to refresh myself. My request was granted as if it were the most natural occurrence.
A young man came in and greeted me.
These people were Germans, immigrated a few years

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ago, and gardeners by trade. They had acquired a fair knowledge of English and seemed eager to learn and to get ahead.
By and by I told them about the books, gave them the canvass, advised the buckram binding, and made the sale as a matter of course on a basis of five dollars down and five a month.
The second order was taken the next day under similar circumstances. That would leave me seven dollars in debt to the company by the middle of the following week.
The experience with these two orders gave me a new idea. When Mrs. McMurchy returned, a day or two before the end of the year, I spoke to her, telling her that I was going to leave the town entirely to the other agents; I wanted to work in the open country.
She tried to dissuade me; she did not believe I could see enough people to make a real success; she insisted that all I needed was to overcome my repugnance to a forceful closing; and that, unless I did overcome this weakness, I should sooner or later leave the business anyway.
I overrode all her objections. I pointed out that I had taken only three orders so far -- all three in the open country -- these orders had stood; if I could not see as many people as in a town, in return my percentage of unsuccessful calls in the country had -- so far -- been zero. I could make people want the books; if they were able to buy them, they would give me the order, not because they saw no other way of getting rid of me, but because I had what they wished to have. I boasted that I was opening up a new field for the company, proving that the books could be sold where apparently nobody had ever tried to sell them before.
Mrs. McMurchy gave in and let me have a free hand.
As gently as she could, she broke to me the news that the order taken by Mr. Tinker and myself in the Bronx had "gone bad". The young lady, the teacher, had first written to the company trying to cancel her mother's order, and when they sent the books in spite of her protest,
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she had refused to take them in. Mrs. McMurchy was apologetic about it.
"The house could sue, of course," she said; "but no company likes to do that because it gives them a hard name."
"Of course," I said. "Not that I care about the house, but it would be a crime to force the poor people."
I asked a few questions about these orders which "went bad" and learned that the company always expected prompt payment if the books were taken into the house; if not, they preferred to drop the matter.
That brought my debt back to thirteen dollars.
On Tuesday we moved to Mt. Kisco. My way of working amounted henceforth to roaming the country, with my prospectuses, sample pages, and folders hidden away about my person, There were days when I simply enjoyed myself; there were days when I made fifteen or twenty calls. I never found any difference in the net result. At last I thought that I could see by the mere looks of a place whether I could make a sale or not. And when I made only one or two calls a day, I was simply passing up what I considered to be hopeless cases.
Time flew.
I was probably the most persistently cheerful member of our crew, for my calls were at least not spoiled by outbreaks of temper on the part of the "prospects". We went to Brewster, to Dover-Plains, to Sharon, and thence into Connecticut, via Danbury and Bridgeport, down to the coast. The winter months went in this way. The three other agents made their board, and so did I. The others were older in the business of selling books, but somehow it remained a marvel to them that I did not give it up. The fact was that I did not know what to do. At last, when we were nearing New York again, I began to play with the idea of going over to another company which had what I considered a more promising proposition.
I spoke of it to Ray; and he confided to me that he

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was going to dropout as soon as I did. He intended to leave the business altogether.
"Just tell me," he said, "where does it lead? Suppose there were no set-backs. Suppose I could make a little more than my board-bill and lay by a trifle -- I can't; I've been wearing this suit for fourteen months, and it's the only one I've got; it's wearing out; but let that go -- suppose I could lay by a few dollars a week, where does it get me? A book agent all my life? I want to draw. When I took this up, I had gone hungry rather too much; I thought it would feel good to get three squares a day. Well, I am getting three triangles a day . . ." That was a common joke between us.
"And meanwhile Life slips by," I added.
"That's it," he said. "So long as you stay, I feel that I'm getting something -- something that I haven't been looking for. Oh, yes," he waved aside a motion of protest, "you've helped me a lot. I've read. I consider that your acquaintance has been worth to me as much as a year or two at college. I see my way now. I'll go and get a job with a sign-painter or something like that. I'll be happy if I can dabble in paints and with pencils. Before I knew you, I felt as if I were degrading myself by doing manual work. I tried to sell sketches. Now I see I can get an education through books. I don't mind any longer going to work with my hands. I'll have my leisure; I shall be at peace with myself. This is worry all the time. When I'm not canvassing, I have the blues. I'm too young. People laugh at me in this business; their laugh stings. I am losing my ambition. When I set out in the morning, my highest wish is to bring in an order, and for a morocco set at that."
I laughed. "Well," I said, "I suppose you are right. Ray. At least for yourself. I don't consider it bad to lose my ambition. In fact, I have nothing to lose there. But I'm not ready to quit. I'll join another company; I don't see my way out just yet."

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Several things concurred to change my wish into a resolution.
One day, when calling at a country house, I ran across a man who had the books. I even remember his name, which was Turnbull.
He lived in a large, ramshackle house of palatial dimensions, though, apart from its size, there was nothing palatial about it He was a handsome, unkempt sort of a man, the kind that will play the devil with the girls and that feels aggrieved when anything goes wrong with them.
When, at my knock, he came to the door, he began to talk as soon as he saw me. "Come in," he said; "you'll find the house in a deuce of a shape, though. The women have left, it seems. My wife, I mean, and my daughter." He laughed the laugh of a man with a more or less unsettled mind; but it was half affected. "Damn women anyway; I never could understand them. I suppose, I was drunk last night . . . Well, what can I do for you?"
Reluctantly I stated my errand.
"What's that?" he interrupted me, bending forward and looking short-sightedly at my prospectus. "Oh, yes, the Travellogues. I've got them. There they are on the shelf. Want to buy them? Can't sell me anything, my man. But you can buy every dog-gone blessed thing on this hillside. Haven't got a drop of brandy on you, by any chance? Too bad. Hang that headache! Well, as I said, want to buy them? Ten dollars the set."
"Ten dollars?" I said. I had had a windfall in the way of orders, so that I was a little ahead with the company. "Well, yes, I'd buy the books at that price."
"Good," he said and laughed raucously, "fine, splendid! Anything else I could sell you? Nothing is of much use to me any longer. Wife left me, you see. For good, she writes. Left a letter behind. I had just read it when you came. She will no longer share my shameful life. Shameful is good, isn't it? Because I like a drop once in awhile, or twice in a while, sometimes. Well, God be with her! That's settled then, is it, eh? Sure I can't sell you

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anything else? A horse and buggy? The house? Or the farm? You need a horse in that business! Well, come along. I'll tell Jim to hitch up and take you to town, so you can take the damn books along. Sure, no trouble at all. Take them right along. Just excuse me a moment."
And he stepped to the sink in the kitchen, where he dashed cold water over his head before going out.
Thus I acquired the books and read them. And instantly I began to understand that Mr. Tinker had been right in refusing to let me read them. When I had carefully gone through several volumes, I saw that every positive assertion about the work, as it stood in the canvass, was founded on fact; but the whole work was dead, lifeless, without a spark of genius. The author had seen what everybody sees; he had followed the beaten track of tourist travel, even though he had gone far and wide. As I see it to-day, it probably was not without its value for people whose intellectual food consists in the daily papers, the gossip and newsmongery of the Press. The child needs a primer; nobody judges that primer by standards of literature. But at that time I was not yet far enough advanced in common, every-day psychology to make concessions.
The long and short of it was that my acquaintance with the work took the "punch" out of my canvass.
Another thing influenced me in the same direction. As soon as I had seen the paper, the print, and the illustrations, I felt convinced that the price charged for the set was quite out of proportion to its actual cost. I discussed this matter with Mr. Tinker, when he ran over on one of his frequent visits -- to Mrs. McMurchy, as Mrs. Coldwell insinuated. I did not tell him, of course, that I had a set in my room. He explained that the cost included, on the one hand the actual cost of manufacture, the royalties, the express-charges, the commissions, and the overhead on the books which stayed sold; on the other, bad debts -- for only sixty per cent of the sets which were delivered

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were ever paid for in full -- and express charges and so on for all the books which were not even accepted by those who had ordered them. All that went practically without saying; yet it had never entered my mind.
Soon after, the financial status of Mrs. McMurchy and Mr. Tinker became a problem to me. Surely, the house could not pay them a salary out of the limited proceeds of the sales engineered by them? Mr. Tinker had, so I heard, four or five crews at work, all of them turning in, maybe, from six to ten orders a week. Guarded enquiries along this line revealed the fact that Mrs. McMurchy was drawing three dollars on every set sold by a member of her crew, and Mr. Tinker, one. So the total of the commissions alone amounted to sixteen dollars on a full morocco set sold "on time".
These revelations came at a critical moment when an order of my own gave me food for thought and made me view the whole business as none too legitimate.
I had been making a good many calls in a densely settled rural district. It was one of my off-days, when that instinct which led me to pass over hopeless places seemed to have deserted me.
At supper-time, in the last amber glow of daylight, I passed a mere hut of a house. On any other day I should have gone on; this time I knocked.
It held a single room with two occupants. One of them was a young, woman, a mere girl, busy at a tiny cook-stove; the other, a young man -- he, too, a mere boy -- was washing his face in a basin placed on a box. The room contained an iron bedstead with a cheap excelsior mattress; two boxes flanking the bed; the stove in the centre; and, in front of a wooden bench, along the opposite wall, a home-made table covered with oil-cloth. There was not even a chair.
I do not know what possessed me to give these people the canvass; but I did.
They had just been married, not more than two weeks ago; they were, that I could readily see, absurdly in love with each other. The man was a labourer; the woman

had been a servant-girl. They were awkward and bashful; they laughed and blushed at everything. It flattered them to have a well-dressed man like myself speak politely to them and solicit their order. To take it was like leading a sheep to slaughter. There was no escape for them. Yet I took it, waiving even the question of a payment with the order.
A few days after that -- my conscience meanwhile having played havoc with my rest -- I went back to see them. It was my intention to advise them not to take the books into their house.
I found the woman alone; to my amazement she was sitting at the table and looking at the pictures in the set. An order in a neighbouring town had "gone wrong", and Mr. Tinker, on receiving that of these people, had promptly switched the set over to the new address.
"Well," I said when I entered, "I see the books have arrived. How do you like them?"
"Oh," she replied, half embarrassed, "they are lovely! But how are we ever going to pay for them?"
"I began to feel worried about you," I went on. "That's why I came back."
"Oh?" -- with a questioning glance.
"You see, if, after talking things over a little more fully, you had not taken the books into your house, the company could not have forced you to take them at all."
"That's what I told my husband," she said; and somehow I knew how glad she was to be able to call him her husband. "But when he heard there was a box for him at the station, he rushed right off and brought them up. Well . . . it's all the same. I guess, we'll pay for them somehow; but we have not the money just now. He hires out, you see."
"All right," I said, "You've got to make the best of it now. I'll tell you what I'll do. You promised to make your first payment on delivery. It is due. I'll send it in

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