cigar and take the world easy. I'm not going out tonight.'

"Sam went down to the corner with me. In a few minutes I returned to
the store with my check book in hand. As I went into his store Sam was
putting my goods back on the shelves.

"'Got your samples open?' he said.

"'Sure, Sam,' said I. 'Did you suppose I was going to let you bluff me
this way?' And that was the last time he ever tried to work the rebate
racket on me."

"So long as a bluffer is warm about it," said the shoe man, "it's all
right; but I do hate to go up against one of those cold bloods, even
if he isn't a bluffer."

"That depends," said the clothing man. "There's one man I used to call
on and every time I went to see him I felt like feeling of his pulse
to see if it were beating. If I had taken hold of his wrist I would
not have been surprised to find that the artery was filled with fine
ice. Gee! but how he froze me. Somehow I could always get him to
listen to me, but I could never get him to buy.

"One day, to my surprise, the minute I struck him he said, 'Samples
open?' And when I told him 'Yes' he had his man in my department turn
over a customer that he was waiting on, to another one of the boys,
and took him right down to the sample room. I never sold an easier
bill in my life, so you see a cold blood is all right if he freezes
out the other fellow."