'It hasn't begun yet. I can only lay my hand on a few hundred
pounds, one way and another. And I'm turned thirty. But the next ten
years are going to do it. Do you know what I did last Saturday? I
got fifteen hundred pounds' worth of advertising for our people,
from a chap that's never yet put a penny into the hands of an agent.
I went down and talked to him like a father. He was the hardest nut
I ever had to crack, but in thirty-five minutes I'd got him--like
a roach on a hook. And it'll be to his advantage, mind you. That
fifteen hundred 'll bring him in more business than he's had for ten
years past. I got him to confess he was going down the hill. "Of
course," I said, "because you don't know how to advertise, and won't
let anybody else know for you?" In a few minutes he was telling me
he'd dropped more than a thousand on a patent that was out of date
before it got fairly going. "All right," said I. "Here's your new
cooking-stove. You've dropped a thousand on the other thing; give
your advertising to us, and I'll guarantee you shall come home on
the cooking-stove."'

'Come home on it?' Nancy inquired, in astonishment.

'Oh, it's our way of talking,' said the other, with his hearty
laugh. 'It means to make up one's loss. And he'll do it. And when he
has, he'll think no end of me.'

'I daresay.'

'Not long ago, I boxed a chap for his advertising. A fair turn-up
with the gloves. Do you suppose I licked him? Not I; though I could
have done it with one hand. I just let him knock me out of time, and
two minutes after he put all his business into my hands.'