a good deal more like a school teacher than a salesman. His name was
Bartlett and he was selling chisels. He didn't know much about the
goods, or about hardware, but he had a frank, open way of confessing
his ignorance and his prices were all right. Do you know him?"

"Yes."

"All the wholesalers know Bartlett; he's getting shiny on the head,
but he can talk Miller's cutlery sweeter than the angels can sing.
They tell me he's grown rich and lives like a lord; owns an island in
Long Island Sound, and a yacht and other good things, but he's the
pleasantest man who comes here."

I like to hear about traveling men who have prospered; they ought to
get on in the world if any class of men can get on. There may be
houses that are prosperous in spite of their salesmen, but such houses
are very few. And the man who can make money for others ought to be
able to do that for himself, but this does not always follow. I have
met some traveling men who were once superior salesmen and then
steadily ran down. Perhaps whisky is back of it, or, perhaps,
circumstances are against them, but every business man will have known
just such cases. Mr. Bell and I discussed this until it was time to
part, and then he said, "Come in again, I may see something else." I
felt that I had won his good will.




CHAPTER X.