opinions at the gatherings in the grocery, pointed out hesitatingly that
the papers took account of men of wealth no matter what their
achievements, "Make money! Cheat! Lie! Be one of the men of the big world!
Get your name up for a modern, high-class American!"

And in the next breath, turning upon Freedom Smith who had begun to berate
the boy for not sticking to the schools and who predicted that the day
would come when Sam would regret his lack of book learning, he shouted,
"Let the schools go! They are but musty beds in which old clerkliness lies
asleep!"

Among the travelling men who came to Caxton to sell goods, the boy, who
had continued the paper selling even after attaining the stature of a man,
was a favourite. Sitting in chairs before the New Leland House they talked
to him of the city and of the money to be made there.

"It is the place for a live young man," they said.

Sam had a talent for drawing people into talk of themselves and of their
affairs and began to cultivate travelling men. From them, he got into his
nostrils a whiff of the city and, listening to them, he saw the great ways
filled with hurrying people, the tall buildings touching the sky, the men
running about intent upon money-making, and the clerks going on year after
year on small salaries getting nowhere, a part of, and yet not
understanding, the impulses and motives of the enterprises that supported
them.

In this picture Sam thought he saw a place for himself. He conceived of
life in the city as a great game in which he believed he could play a
sterling part. Had he not in Caxton brought something out of nothing, had