you look back over the goods in the store. Of course, you are positively
familiar with everything in stock. You came out on the road either
because you asked to go, or because other folks had espied a faculty of
persuasion in you which they thought would sell goods. Sometimes a man
looks persuasively, sometimes he talks persuasively; sometimes he both
looks and talks it. This is after he has had practice. "Iron sharpeneth
iron. So a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." Now this town
you are going to is a band of enemies. How can you make a conquest? By
doing as Napoleon did. Set your own time for the fight, pitch upon one
man at a time, always pick out one not used to your mode of warfare,
and then clean him out before he thinks the action has begun.
"Formerly," says Bovee, naively, "when great fortunes were only made in
war, war was business; but now, when great fortunes are only made by
business, business is war."