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“I didn’t see any more of my friend Henry until the next morning. The train was late and left about seven o’clock.

“‘Vell, what luck yesterday?’ said Henry.

“As he came up to me in the train where I was sitting with a friend, I said, ‘Well, I sold a bill.’

“‘Who bought of you?’

“‘The clothing man here.’

“‘Vell, dot’s de feller,’ said Henry, ‘dot told me he vas going to haf von day in de year for his family. And you solt him? Vell, how did you do id?’

“I briefly told Henry of my experience.

“‘Vell, dot vas goot,’ said he.

“My advance agent friend, who had sat beside me–Henry had fallen in with us in our double seat–said to Henry, ‘Now, that’s a good line of argument. Why don’t you use that sometime?’ A twinkle came into my theatrical friend’s eye when Henry did, in fact, ask my permission to use this line of talk. I told Henry, ‘Why, sure, go on and use that argument anywhere you want to. I shall not use it again because in every town that I shall strike, from this time on, I have an old established customer. I have no use for that argument. Just go and use it.’

“‘You’d better write that down with a pencil, Henry,’ said the advance agent–Stanley was his name.

“‘No, dere’s no use ov writing dot down,’ said Henry. ‘Dot archurnent vas so clear dot I haf it in my headt!’

“But, sure enough, Henry took out his lead pencil and jotted down the points in the back of his order book. In the next town we struck, one of the merchants was a gruff old Tartar. He was the first man that Henry lit onto.

“Now, an old merchant can size up a traveling man very soon after he enters the door. The shoeman will go over to where the shoes are kept; the hat man will turn his face toward the hat case; the furnishing goods man will size up the display of neckwear; in fact, a merchant once told me that he could even tell the difference between a clothing man and a pants man. A clothing man will walk up to a table and run his hands over the coats while a pants man will always finger the trousers to a suit.

“Well, sir, when Henry walked into this gruff old merchant’s store, he found him busy waiting on a customer so up he marched to a clothing table and began to feel of a pile of pants. After the customer went out he went up to the old man and said to him, ‘Gootmorning, sir. I am a physician, sir, and I am looking for a logation–‘

“‘You are no such a —- thing,’ said the old man. ‘You are selling pants.’

“Henry told me of this experience when he came back to the hotel and he was so broken hearted that he almost felt like going back home. In fact, he didn’t last more than about three weeks. He had started too late in life to learn the arts of the traveling man.”

“You bet,” said the wall paper man who had heard this story. “Attention is the whole cheese. I know I once tried my hardest to get hold of an old Irishman down in Texas. He was a jolly old chap but I couldn’t get next. There wasn’t any sample room in the town and if I showed my goods to any one, I would have to get his consent to let me bring my stuff into his store. When I struck old Murphy to let me bring my goods in, he gave me a stand-off so hard that another one of the boys who was in the store gave me the laugh. This riled me a little and I said to my friend who thought he had the joke on me, ‘I am going to sell that old duck just the same.’ ‘I’ll bet a new hat you don’t,’ said he. Something flashed across me somehow or other. I got bold and I said, I’ll just take that bet.’