EFORE my leg was quite healed and while I was still limping about with the help of a cane, I called on Mr. Wilbur, the president of the North American Historians' Publishing Company, New York City. These people had, so I understood, within recent years placed a composite history of the world on the market which I presumed to be good. The Editor-in-chief was a man of world-wide reputation as an historian and lexicographer. The different periods and nations had been treated by the best modern authorities in all civilized countries; and the work of those who were not Anglo-Saxon had been translated into English by men who themselves were considered authorities in the respective Fields. The work was comparatively new; I held high hopes for its prospects.
I found the offices of the company in one of the most fashionable sky-scrapers of the city, where they occupied a whole sumptuously furnished floor. No other offices or branches, so it seemed, were entertained.
On entering the waiting room and stating my wish to see Mr. Wilbur, I was requested to fill out a blank, giving my business, name, and so on. After a few minutes I was told that Mr. Wilbur would receive me. There was an air of importance and exclusiveness about the whole procedure.
Mr. Wilbur was exceedingly polite. I told him what experience I had had and submitted my weekly statements in evidence of my measure of success.
"I'm glad to hear that," said Mr. Wilbur. "The Travellogues have been canvassed to death. If you can still sell them, your salesmanship is all right."

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"I am weak on closing, though," I put in. "I cannot clinch a sale when I see the prospect cannot afford to buy."
"Well," said Mr. Wilbur, appraisingly, "that will not stand in the way of your success, either, if we sign you up. We shall not ask you to call on anybody who cannot afford the price. But it is lunch-time, Mr. Branden. Maybe we had better postpone talking business till we have had a bite to eat. Will you accept an invitation to lunch with me at my club?"
"With pleasure," I said; "provided you do not find it embarrassing to go about with an invalid."
"Not at all."
We went down in the elevator and to the curb where a magnificent limousine was waiting. A liveried chauffeur who touched his cap was holding the door for us and nodded when Mr. Wilbur gave him our destination. A moment later we shot away. During the short ride only commonplace remarks were made.
Soon after, we were sitting in the luxurious dining-room of a fashionable men's luncheon-club. The meal which Mr. Wilbur ordered was simple but exquisitely prepared; the wine which was served with it Mr. Wilbur had ordered to be taken "from my private stock, please". Mr. Wilbur was visibly pleased when, after tasting it, I promptly named the vintage, Romané, from which it proceeded. That was a feat at which I had excelled in my heyday of Europe.
We were surrounded by the "jeunesse dorée" of a very definite fraction of New York's commercial world. I gathered from Mr. Wilbur's remarks that all of them had more or less decided artistic leanings. In their bearing, dress, and manners there was that which Moliere would have called précieux.
Mr. Wilbur himself, as compared with the majority of these guests, showed a quiet, superior, slightly ironic reserve which impressed me favourably. He did not take these people with their mannerisms seriously.
He was a tall, sparely built man with an exceedingly

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pleasant, clean-shaven face. His clothes were conservative, but of the best style and cut. A thin platinum watch-chain was, apart from a scarf-pin, the only jewellery which he exhibited. His long, slender hands were unencumbered with rings. He spoke with an even, self-possessed voice from which he was at no pains to exclude his marked, but good-natured irony.
When we had finished our lunch, he initialled his check; and we rose.
"Do you smoke, Mr. Branden?"
"I do," I replied, "I'm sorry to say."
"Oh, why?" he smiled. "I am partial to the weed myself. Shall we go into the smoking-room? There we can talk."
When we were ensconced in two leather-chairs, in a corner of the comfortable smoking-room, away from the bustle of the other guests, Mr. Wilbur's first question was, "When can you start work for us, Mr. Branden?"
I don't know why; but this question convinced me by its mere abruptness that the invitation to lunch had been a scheme; I had been on trial during the last half hour; and I had been approved of. I heard later on that Mr. Wilbur never engaged a salesman before he had seen him eat.
"Whenever my shins cease to give me trouble," I replied. "Within a week or so, I suppose."
"Very well," said Mr. Wilbur. "That will give you time to familiarize yourself with our prospectuses and to work out your selling points."
"Could I read a volume or two of the work itself?"
"Certainly," was the reply. "I shall place a complete set of the popular edition at your disposal if you wish it. Though with the people to whom we sell it does not matter what the books themselves may be."
"How is that?" I exclaimed, more than surprised.
Mr. Wilbur smiled. "You see," he said, after a second or so, "we sell a very high-priced, limited edition de luxe. We have printed one thousand copies on hand-made

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Holland paper. The plates have been taken down. Our bindings are made of hand-embossed leather, the most costly kind; no two bindings are alike. The sets are numbered. Every one of the twenty volumes contains four hand-painted plates by a famous artist. What we sell is not so much the book as the prestige which the possession of a set will confer upon the holder."
He had been speaking with his quiet irony, as if he were making fun of the buyers. I was taken aback, but I smiled at the idea of gaining social prestige by buying expensive books.
"I see," I said. "What is the price of the set?"
"That depends," he replied. "First of all let me say that there are really two editions -- ours and a popular print. This merely for your own, private information. We have nothing whatever to do with the popular set. It is not likely, but it is possible, that you may run up against this popular reprint. So I think it better that you know about it; officially you are not to take cognizance of it. We want you to sell the deluxe edition. Should you ever, among your prospects, run up against anybody who knows of the cheaper set, you treat it with quiet contempt as a pirated print. It is handled under a different firm; that protects you."
I pondered this; but no suspicion entered my mind. Mr. Wilbur paused while I followed my thoughts.
Then he went on. "I shall take pleasure in presenting you with one of the popular sets for your own use if you sign up with us. It sells, by the way, for sixty dollars. As for our edition -- I shall show you when we get back to the office some of the original paintings for the illustrations."
"Just a moment," I interrupted. "Did I not understand you to say that the illustrations in the sets themselves are originals?"
"No; they are hand-painted; well-known artists are responsible for them; but, naturally, they are copies, for they are the same in all the sets. . . . Do I make myself clear?"

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"Yes," I said, "I understand."
"Now as for the bindings. We use two materials, parchment and pin-grain morocco. The price of the sets in parchment varies from eight hundred to fourteen hundred dollars a set; the price of the sets in morocco, from five to eight hundred dollars. The difference in the price of the various sets is explained by the following fact. All the bindings are imitations of the bindings of famous books of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They vary in difficulty of execution; for every volume a special plate had to be made. You sell individual sets. We shall always keep you supplied with full-sized photographs of four or five different sets which you can sell whenever a set is sold, we supply you with the necessary photographs to replace the ones you have disposed of."
I was impressed, not so much by the prices as by the elaborate preparation of these sets.
"What would my commission amount to?" I asked.
"I am coming to that," Mr. Wilbur replied. "Your commission is twenty per cent. Since you spoke about the financial side of it, we might just as well finish that part. Do not expect to sell one or two sets a day. It may sometimes take you a month before you make a sale, but at the lowest price that will net you a hundred dollars, at the highest it will bring you two hundred and eighty. To show you that I am willing to back up my opinion of your success, I shall open for you a drawing account with our house, the very moment you are ready to start your work. Suppose we put it at fifty dollars a week?"
"I did not expect that much," I said.
"Now as to our selling scheme. You will be under quite an expense because we direct you on whom to call; and though we try to keep a man working in a restricted territory, you may be in Boston or in New Haven when we shall have to ask you to run over to Washington or Pittsburg to attend to a prospect there. We authorize you to call on a man to whom you may get a personal introduction from a friend of his; but if you do, we

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must require you to notify us by wire; or we might meanwhile send somebody else to see him; this other salesman would lose his time and his money. In any case we discourage promiscuous calls. As a rule we sell only to people whom we know to be bibliophiles. We have lists of people who are more or less habitual buyers of high-priced books. These lists are, of course, subject to constant revision and extension by the work of our salesmen. But if we sold only five per cent of the people whose names are already on them, we should be so swamped with orders that we should have to establish a waiting list. We circularize these people for a few weeks, thus arousing their curiosity. Then we offer to send a representative who will explain, without any obligation on their part, just what our proposition is. We enclose a card addressed to ourselves and expressing a desire to be further informed. Whoever returns this card with his signature receives a further letter stating that our representative, Mr. So-and-so, will call on that-and-that date and at such-and-such hour. Thus, when you see him, you have an appointment; your interview is made."
"Why not eliminate the agent altogether?" I asked.
"My dear Mr. Branden," Mr. Wilbur laughed, "I assure you we should gladly do so. The twenty per cent which the salesman gets would look just as good in my pocket as in his."
I, too, laughed.
"Unfortunately," he went on, "the American buyer suffers from two weaknesses which only the pressure of a personal interview will overcome: indecision and procrastination. An order postponed is an order lost. It is easy to lay a letter aside. But it is a different matter to ask an agent to call again when that agent can truthfully say that, at the customer's call, he has come across half a continent to see him. By the way, I should advise you to look as English as you can and to treat your prospective customers with all the arrogance of a superior education. As for your speech, it is pretty good. I should rather

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affect that lisp and drawl which you possess naturally. The more English you seem, the less will those people dare to refuse you an order."
I laughed again.
Mr. Wilbur dropped his cigar into an ash-bowl. "Well." he said, "if you are ready to go . . ."
We rose.
"My car," Mr. Wilbur said to the attendant who appeared with our hat and coats.
Two minutes later we were being shot back through the crowded avenue to the office.
There we found, talking gaily to some of the young ladies who sat at the typewriters, a florid young man in well-tailored but pronounced attire who greeted the president of the company with a familiar nod and smile.
"Hello, Wilbur, how are you to-day?"
"Hello, Williams," replied Mr. Wilbur, "how are you yourself? Come in."
We entered his private office.
Mr. Wilbur introduced me.
Mr. Williams shook hands with a great show of cordiality. He had a curious way of throwing out his elbows with an angular motion. "Charmed to meet you," he said with an accent which was a caricature of insular affectation.
"I was just going to show Mr. Branden the paintings," Mr . Wilbur went on. "Do you want to come?"
"Don't mind if I do."
We went into a long corridor whose walls were hung on both sides with historical paintings of large proportions and in the unmistakable manner of Delacroix. Most of them represented battle-scenes or state-occasions. I did not apply any standards of criticism -- for which, by the way, in spite of my historical schooling, I was little qualified -- and they did not fail to impress me duly.
I admired conservatively.
"Not bad, not bad," said Mr. Williams with a wink of his eye; Mr. Wilbur smiled.

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Then he opened a door leading into a large, well-lighted room in which stood half a dozen glass-cases on mahogany bases, displaying samples of the bindings. There was no doubt about these: they were marvellously done. Even age-spots, caused by the handling of the ancient originals were closely imitated from mediaeval models. I could not refrain from caressing one or two of the covers, although I could not get rid of the feeling that they, being mere imitations of things that were dead, had something of that exaggerated glitter and polish which attaches to all that is counterfeit. But I tried to tell myself that the thing itself was legitimate enough. Only much later did it strike me that I never saw a bound set, only empty bindings.
"Marvellous!" mocked Mr. Williams. "What an amount of trouble we go to in order to help the rich in our small way to spend their money! These are much too good for the snobs!"
"Too good, indeed," Mr. Wilbur agreed.
He seemed to feel like myself. I could not know at the time which was the difference between his melancholy and my own. I was to find out that, whereas I felt it nearly as a profanation that things of real beauty should be degraded by being fitted into a scheme for making money, he regretted only that he had to spend an appreciable fraction of what he was getting in order to draw the larger sum out of his customers. When I came to see through him, I understood that he would have preferred to take the money outright and not to give even part value in return.
We returned to his private office. I did not account for the fact; but the whole atmosphere had taken possession of me. I was still a recent immigrant. These were things European. Even the text of the work was vouched for by European names. After all, scientific and literary America did seem parasitic; it rooted in the millennia-old culture of Europe. The word of a young friend of mine, a student of Art in the university of Paris, who had intro-

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duced some Americans into our circles, came back to me. "Americans," he had said, "are Americans only till they have made their money. After that they go down on their bellies before everything European." Something of the inexpressible contempt for America contained in these words pervaded my whole being. Both Mr. Wilbur and Mr. Williams, Americans themselves, seemed to share it.
"Well," Mr. Wilbur asked when we were again sitting at his desk, "what do you think about it? Will you give us a try-out?"
"I think so," I said, though hesitatingly, "if you believe that I can make a success at it."
"Of that I feel sure," replied Mr. Wilbur, and, turning to Williams, he added, "By the way, Williams, it just strikes me that Branden and you should be able to pull together for a day or two? Of course, he will have to find his own way; but no doubt it would help him to see somebody else at work. We were just going to book you out for Pittsburg, I believe. I'll make sure about it. You were to call on one of our steel magnates, Mr. What's-his-name-Kirsty, I think. How would it be if Mr. Branden accompanied you on the trip? Should you lose your order, we'll credit you with a week's allowance anyway. That satisfactory?"
"Sure," said Mr. Williams, "quite."
"All right," said Mr. Wilbur, and pressed a button.
A trim young lady entered.
"Bring me a salesman's contract, Miss Donahue," he addressed her. "And do you remember for whom we were going to book Mr. Williams?"
"For Mr. Kirsty, Pittsburg."
"Well," Mr. Wilbur pondered aloud, "suppose you make the date a week from day after to-morrow at eleven o'clock, in his office. You think you will be ready to go out by that time, Mr. Branden?"
"I think so, yes," I replied.
"All right, we'll leave it at that. Just include Mr.

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Branden, B-r-a-n-d-e-n, in your announcement. Thanks, Miss Donahue."
A few minutes later I had signed a contract in duplicate, binding me for one month; and Mr. Wilbur dismissed me, saying, "Please drop in at this office a week from to-day. We shall book you for your train and supply you with funds. Miss Donahue will address a set and all the material for study to you."
On the appointed day I presented myself at the office. I had carefully studied the "literature" with which I had been provided, a little booklet entitled "Hints for our Salesmen," and had read two or three volumes of the work itself. I was thoroughly convinced of the intrinsic value of the set and declared to Mr. Wilbur when he received me that I should be willing to go on the road in order to sell the popular edition on a straight canvass.
"That's all right," he said with his usual good-humour. "The point is, we can get a hundred canvassers for the popular edition where we get one who can sell the high-priced set. Besides, as I have said, we have nothing to do with the other print. I should like to try you out on our proposition."
He pushed an envelope across the desk. I opened it and found a cheque for fifty dollars, a return-ticket to Pittsburg over the Pennsylvania railroad, a sleeping-car reservation, and a receipt for these three items which I signed.
"As soon as you get through at Pittsburg, please report again at this office," Mr. Wilbur said as I rose.
I met Mr. Williams at the station in Jersey City. Since I did not know what else to do with the remainder of my baggage, two suitcases and a large steamer trunk, I took them along.
"Hope you've had your supper?" Mr. Williams asked when we boarded our car.
"Yes," I replied.
"Well, let's turn in," he said and led the way to our berths.

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I lay awake for the greater part of the night. I felt sorry that we did not travel by a day-train; everything that I might see had a bearing upon my one great problem, America. Now I was flying along again, through one of the richest and most famous states of the Union, and I was passing through it as if I were rolling along through an underground corridor. Such was the effect of the night. And what a change! Here I was travelling with all the appurtenances of wealth. If a few months ago my appearance and my clothes had stood in the way of success, suddenly they had become my greatest asset. Even my brogue, which had cost me more than one position, I was now advised to accentuate rather than to get rid of. A few weeks ago I had been selling a work which I should not have cared to put into my own library -- I had given my set to Mrs. Coldwell -- which the people, however, wanted and could not afford to buy. Now I was going to sell a work which I valued highly -- to people who never read what they bought! This book, I felt sure, I could make people want much more strongly because I knew it: its intrinsic merit was to count for nothing! I did not feel very comfortable over that point; but I could not afford to indulge in such thoughts. If this business proved to be a money-maker for me, I was going to stay with it; I needed money. And there was another alluring prospect. I was going to see -- at my leisure -- a good deal of the country into which I had come. True, it was a superficial, a sight-seeing only; but even that was necessary. I could not but marvel at the opportunity which had unexpectedly opened up for me. I could not help wondering, either, how it was that people trusted me. The amount advanced to me totalled over sixty-five dollars. I did not know at the time that Mr. Wilbur, after my first interview. with him, had telephoned to the other house and verified what I had told him. Above all, he had learned that I had actually squared up the advances which I had received. He probably thought that he could trust

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a man who would do a thing considered so Quixotic by most of the agents who sold books.
Some time during the night I started up from my half-sleep, wakened by piercing darts of light at the very edge of the window-curtain. Soon after, voices shouted, the train slowed down and finally stopped. I raised the blind, and there, just in front of my window, I read the name of the station in the glare of an arc-light. It was Harrisburg. This name brought to my mind that of the river on whose banks the city stands: Susquehanna. I rolled the word in my mouth: soon we were going to follow the course of the Juniata, famed in song; and again a poignant regret came over me, a desire to swing my legs, walking along its banks, to be free, free, like the bird, to go where I listed.
A strange feeling came over me, a suspicion, an anxiety. Frank, Hannan, Howard: graft, I thought; the manager of the Telegraph and Cable Company, the Captain at the Belmont, Mr. Tinker: cruelty; Mrs. Coldwell, Turnbull, and others whom I had met in my canvasses: failure! Were these the three sides of America? Did graft and cruelty prey on weakness only? The two police-officials whom I had met, the captain at the central station in New York and Mr. Mulligan, the detective, seemed to look at me out of the dark; but I dismissed the thought of them; they did not fit into this ready-made scheme of condemnation. Bennett, too, raised his head in my half-dream; and then the pleasant young captain at the King Street restaurant in Toronto. Nor did young Ray fit in; nor the couple from whom I had taken the order of which I repented. Well, how about Mr. Wilbur and those I was going to meet in my new position? I did not know. But had not he himself given me the clue? Contempt for his compatriots, was not that the very essence of his business? What he sold, was social prestige! I felt half sorry for having met him. Yet, even this was knowledge which I was acquiring. I had to go through with it, now.

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When daylight came, I got up. We were nearing Johnstown, on the west-slope of the Alleghenies. There was a commotion in our car as we approached the city of the Cambria Steel Works. A good many passengers were preparing to get off the train. More and more people were dressing behind their curtains. The porter began to knock down the berths.
It seemed as if we were dropping into a black pit of smoke, an underground hell, of ferocious activity. Only a few minutes ago we had been on green hillsides, crossing, re-crossing the swift, alluring waters of Conemaugh Creek. Now dingy huts and smoke-blackened houses made up the scenery, as with a grinding of brakes we came to a stop. And then we pulled out again; the mountains rose; trees, just budding out into a green haze of foliage, spoke of spring in the world, of hope, of innocent life.
We crossed through the Chestnut Range, beloved scene for me of many a later ramble. Then again the pit. Black sores broke out on Nature's beautiful skin; steaming scars lay across the landscape; smoke-and-flame-belching furnaces wove the black cloak which covers the Iron City with its outforts, Braddock and Duquesne, Homestead and Bessemer. An incomprehensible world.
Just before we reached Pittsburg, Mr. Williams emerged, smiling, in the best of conditions and humours.
"I'm glad I slept through the trip," he said, "I don't like to have breakfast on the train. Give me your checks. There's the conductor now."
He gave the necessary directions with regard to our baggage.
A few minutes later we boarded a cab in front of Union Station and rode to the Fort Pitt Hotel.
"At least," I thought to myself, "these agents travel in style. It is less tiring, anyway."
While we had our breakfast, I remarked upon it.
"Damn it all," said Mr. Williams, "that is the least they can do for us who do their dirty work, I should think."

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I looked up, rather astonished at the bitterness in his words. He laughed.
"Don't mind me, Branden," he said. "I always feel out of sorts when I am going to call on one of these suckers. But I do my best work when I'm in that frame of mind."
For the day we had nothing to do except to make sure of our arrangements. The interview was provided for; but Mr. Williams explained that we might meet with foreseen and unforeseen difficulties unless we changed the mere announcement of our visit into a definite appointment. He did that over the telephone while I stood by.
"That Mr. Kirsty?" he asked when the connection had been made. "This is Mr. Williams, from New York. You had a letter from my house announcing my call. What time do you wish me to come? Ten, you say? Well, all right, make it ten sharp. Try to be disengaged when we come. Yes, we'll be there at ten sharp."
"The fish is hooked, " he said, hanging the receiver up. "Suppose we'll land him."
He yawned and stretched.
"Well, Branden," he went on, "I'm going to see friends. Want to come along?"
"If you don't mind," I replied, "I should prefer to see something of the city and its surroundings."
"Not at all," he said briefly; "suit yourself. See you some time to-day. If not, to-morrow morning at breakfast. I'll be down at eight thirty. So long."
I explored the city for the rest of the day.
Just a word about the man on whom we were going to call. His name was a synonym for enormous wealth. Mr. Kirsty was one of those Americans who, by the ruthless exploitation of preempted natural resources and of basic inventions which were useless to their inventors because they lacked the capital to exploit them had obtained a position of power and influence, such that for a while their say-so counted in certain matters for more than the voice of the commonwealth. I met a number of them in my peregrinations; and though I did not see

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them at their best -- nor at their worst -- I found that the interview which I am going to describe was typical in one respect: it shows their personal insignificance. We are apt, in our thoughts, to associate immense wealth with some nearly superhuman mental endowment. I found them to be middle-class people, in most things of no greater intelligence than the next one, and remarkable only by a certain blind, unfaltering calculation of what is to their profit. Morally they seemed neither better nor worse than the average. They were adept in seeing their advantage, and very indifferent to the higher ethics in going after it, just as most of us are, on a smaller scale. Yet, being only average people, with an average conscience, and by no means Napoleons, they had a sore soul; at heart they could not understand, nor be reconciled to, their own success. They attributed it to some form of genius before which they themselves stood in awe as if it were something imposed upon them by destiny. With most of them there was added to this a certain uneasiness which drove them to devoting millions to what they considered worthy causes enterprises which in the opinion of any sane person should be exclusively reserved to the state. During the time that has elapsed since these things happened the Mr. Kirstys have multiplied and fattened to an amazing degree; large-scale "Philanthropy" has become the fashion among multi-millionaires. I suppose, John's "Repent ye" has penetrated even the gates of gold.
When, on the decisive morning, Mr. Williams appeared for breakfast, he astonished me by the elaborate toilette he had made. He was visibly nervous and tried to hide the fact under an all-embracing, artificial jocularity. It reminded me of Mr. Tinker's nervous tension when he closed the sale to the old Irish lady. As for Mr. Williams' appearance, only a slang-word will describe it briefly: he was "dolled-up"; another slang-word will describe his frame of mind: "he was keyed up to a high pitch." Under his jocularity I sensed an irritability which was always on

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the point of eruption. I could not but marvel at my own, calmly observant mood.
A cab was waiting outside-cars were still rare, at the time and none too reliable. Watch in hand, Mr. Williams paced the lobby, stooping now and then to finger the Gladstone bag in which he carried his materials. I could not help contrasting the calm insolence in his tone when he had spoken to Mr. Kirsty over the telephone with his nervous excitement before the battle. After all there was nothing at stake beyond a commission!
At last he judged that the moment had come; picking up his bag, he nearly snarled, "Time; come on."
A few minutes later the cab stopped in front of a tall office building. We shot up to one of the upper floors.
The master of the forge seemed to roost like a bird of prey above that vast army of workers who directed the activities at the mills.
A stern-looking, simply but expensively dressed young lady of thirty received us with a questioning glance when we left the elevator and stepped into a large reception room.
Mr. Williams flicked a calling card out of his vest-pocket and said, "Mr. Kirsty expects us. I hope he is disengaged."
The young lady looked at a clock in the southern wall, between two high windows. My eyes followed hers. It was exactly ten o'clock.
The view from the windows was superb. It flew out over a veritable sea of roofs to the Monongahela River and rested beyond on the southern bank.
"If you will wait a moment," she said and turned to a tall, distinguished-looking young man who, some papers in his hand, entered the room from the east.
He glanced at the card and nodded.
The lady made a motion inviting us to follow her. We entered a long and wide corridor in which three or four more young ladies were sitting at small desks from which they operated little gates barring the way. I could not

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suppress a smile and an ironical thought: "Royalty is hedged about with guards!" We passed them all, the presence of our guide acting as an "Open, Sesame."
Then we entered the presence.
The room was large, fitted with rose-mahogany bookcases which completely concealed the walls. Two leather reclining chairs offered the only sitting accommodation, besides one straight-backed chair by the side of, and a swivel-chair behind, the huge, flat-topped desk in the centre of the room. The floor was covered with a deepnapped, dark-red carpet.
Behind the desk, a small, rotund man was busy. I search my brain in vain for a word to describe his activity. What he was doing seemed commonplace enough. He was bending down and impatiently opening drawer after drawer and pushing them shut again, as if searching for something that had been mislaid. But when he pushed the drawers back into place, he did it with such unnecessary energy that his movements looked as if he were, monkey-fashion, furiously jumping up and down.
Then I saw his pale, flat-featured face with the small, knob-like nose, framed in carefully brushed, perfumed, and yet straggling grey Whiskers.
The expensive clothes, though freshly pressed, were hanging about him as if carelessly dropped in a pile and by chance caught up on something resembling the ill-shaped figure of a man. There was something shaggy about his appearance. That was a multi-millionaire.
When he raised himself, he shot a glance at the young lady who had been standing in front of us, in the attitude of quiet, expectant deference.
She stepped forward and, without a word, laid our cards on the desk before him.
He nodded and bent down again, without paying the slightest attention to us.
The young lady left the room.
Mr. Williams, with an air of self-possessed insolence, stepped up to the desk, put his bag on the straight-backed

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chair, opened it and straightened. He looked back at me and winked.
I, too, approached; we waited.
At last Mr. Kirsty seemed to give up his search. He pulled his watch from his vest-pocket -- it did not come quite readily, and I could hardly keep from smiling at his impatient jerk. Then we heard his singularly high-pitched, querulous voice.
"Well," he said, "I can give you just five minutes."
But Williams cut in with a note of indignant protest. "Mr. Kirsty," he said, "we have come from New York in order to give you the privilege of acquiring one of the remaining four sets of a work which some of your friends considered it an honour to possess."
"Well, what is it?" asked Mr. Kirsty ill-humouredly.
"If you cannot devote more than five minutes to a proposition like ours," Mr. Williams continued, "I prefer to take the next train home."
"Well, well," Mr. Kirsty said as if speaking to a child, but still with that querulous note, "you know I am a very busy man."
"So am I," Mr. Williams rejoined; "I cannot afford deliberately to waste five minutes of my time and energy."
"How if you saw my secretary?" Mr. Kirsty tried to evade.
"Your secretary," Mr. William said, this time with a smile and a bow, "unfortunately is not on the list of persons to whom we offer this work."
No smile on Mr. Kirsty's face betrayed the conquest which these words had made. He dropped into his swivelchair and made a motion to Mr. Williams to be seated; to me no attention was paid.
"It is not necessary, of course," Mr. Williams began, "to speak of the work itself. The names of the men who are responsible for it are sufficient."
He laid down a list of the authors.
"I will briefly explain how it is got up. The text is printed in one thousand copies, strictly limited. The sets

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are numbered. When the work appeared, there was the natural rush upon it. We held on to the first impressions and are, therefore, able to offer you number eight in a binding selected by yourself. It goes without saying that hand-made paper is used; the illustrations are handpainted, the print a beautiful Aldine type with handilluminated capitals at the beginning of each chapter."
Sample pages were spread out in front of the prospect.
"As to the bindings, no two sets, and in a set no two volumes are bound alike. The higher numbers are bound in morocco; about twenty sets were held for parchment bindings, gold-embossed. Each binding is an exact reproduction of some famous book-cover from the middleages, copied by artists whom we have sent abroad expressly for this work."
He spread out a number of cuts.
"These are the photographs of the bindings which are available. As I said, four sets remain unsold. We shall take pleasure in binding the set which we are holding for you, number eight, in whatever covers you may select."
Mr. Kirsty did not touch the sheets; but he shot an occasional glance at them while he listened.
"Nine hundred and ninety-six sets have been disposed of," Mr. Williams went on. "I have a complete list of the subscribers before me. The buyers of the higher numbers would, of course, not interest you. Here is the list of the one hundred first sets with the names of their holders."
For the first time Mr. Kirsty reached out for what was offered to his inspection. He scanned the list not without interest. "These people," he said in his high-pitched voice which lost its querulous note, "you say have the set? An interesting list. How long have the books been on the market?"
"Six months, I should say," Mr. Williams replied.
"How is it," Mr. Kirsty complained, the querulous note creeping back into his accents, "that I receive this offer only after the greater number of the sets have been sold?"
"Your own fault, Mr. Kirsty," smiled Mr. Williams in

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an amiable tone; "we wrote you about it before number one was off the press. It is our rule never to call except on appointment. At the same time. you see, we were holding this set for you because we knew you for a connoisseur and a lover of rare prints. The moment we received your card we also made bold to reserve for you what we considered the finest of all our bindings. If I may offer a suggestion on a point or two, I shall lay out for your approval what Mr. Wilbur and myself were thinking of when we had your call."
He laid out a set of twenty photographs which covered the desk.
Mr. Kirsty meanwhile went back once more to a careful scrutiny of the list of subscribers. The thought in his mind, though no doubt it remained unconscious, interpreted itself to me in about these terms, "It is a comfort, after all, if I am going to be taken in, to be in such company. I wonder whether this list is according to facts? There is the name of my friend, Mrs. So-and-so. I might call her up over the wire; but it is not necessary, these fellows know that I might do that; they would not dare to put her name down unless she had bought the books."
What he said, was, "How about the price?"
"Fourteen," Mr. Williams replied with an accent of apology as if ashamed that it was not more. "You see," he went on, "the cost is, of course, quite out of proportion to the intrinsic and the rarity value of the set. We are not dealers. We are craftsmen. We do not raise the price according to the demand. We could actually make money by selling to speculators. That is not our way of doing business."
"You say this set will have to be bound for me?" Mr. Kirsty asked; and at last he was actually looking at the photographs.
"Yes," Mr. Williams replied, laying down an order blank.
Mr. Kirsty got to his feet. "Well," he said, once more in his querulous and impatient tone, and beginning

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to work at his drawers again, "I suppose it is all right. Send the set along. What is this?" he added, picking up the order sheet and glancing at it. He handed it back to Mr. Williams. "My word is as good as my bond," he said, not without the punctilio of the small mind.
"Of course," Mr. Williams agreed with a bow of apology.
He quickly gathered his belongings, except the photographs and the partial list of subscribers which Mr. Kirsty seemed to hang on to; bowed once more, and left the office, with me following on his heels.
The cab was waiting. The interview had taken half an hour. It had filled me with scruples and puzzling thoughts. But I could see at a glance that Mr. Williams was not in a mood to resolve my difficulties. He was in that state of complete relaxation which I had observed once before, though to a lesser degree, in Mr. Tinker. When we got back to the hotel, he hurried up to his room and threw himself on a lounge.
At dinner-time, however, I could not repress one question.
"How is it," I asked, "that the house is still engaging agents when only four more sets remain to be sold?"
Mr. Williams gave me a look of dumbfounded surprise and then laughed for a moment so uproariously that I felt the colour rising to the roots of my hair.
Then he turned to the waiter and ordered a glass of Milk. When the waiter brought it, he pushed it over to me. "Want a bottle," he asked, "with nipple attached?"
I reined in my anger. Mr. Williams was beneath my resentment.
When we boarded the night-train, Mr. Williams was in a state of complete intoxication.

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