sank, until I now heartily wished that I had never consented to go.
What if I failed? I had been stock clerk and house salesman for three
years; I had been successful; my position was a good one, and one that
would grow better; there was nothing to be made by success on the
road, as I had no intention of continuing there, and failure might be
the means of making my place in the house less secure. What an
infernal fool I was! If there had been any way under heaven for me to
get out of it I would have hailed the opening with delight. I would
have blessed any accident that would have been the means of sending me
to bed for a week or two, and I would have taken the small-pox
thankfully. But there was no release. Like an ass, as I was, I had
agreed to take Mallon's trip, and I must go ahead if it made or unmade
me.

I ate my supper with a heavy heart, bade my landlady and her daughters
a solemn good-by, then went to the theater to forget my sorrows. At
midnight I was checking my sample-trunk for Albany, and persuading the
baggagemaster that 218 pounds were exactly 120. I succeeded; but it
took three ten-cent cigars to do it.

The reason I call the town Albany is because that is not its name, and
I may as well say here that as I write about actual incidents I don't
propose to "lay myself liable" by giving the name of any town or any
dealer. If I call him Smith it will naturally follow that he was not
Smith.

If Albany had been a hundred or more miles away I would have taken a
berth in the sleeper, but we were due there at 2 o'clock, so I dozed
and nodded and swore to myself during the two hours' ride. I wanted to
get there, but I dreaded it, too. Stories I had heard traveling men