"Let me, let me," he said eagerly.
Then he shook hands, paused a moment awkwardly as if about to say
something, then sprang into his buggy without saying it.
When he had taken up his reins he remarked:
"Say! but you'd make an agent! You'd hypnotise 'em."
I recognised it as the greatest compliment he could pay me: the craft
compliment.
Then he drove off, but pulled up before he had gone five yards. He
turned in his seat, one hand on the back of it, his whip raised.
"Say!" he shouted, and when I walked up he looked at me with fine
embarrassment.
"Mister, perhaps you'd accept one of these sets from Dixon free gratis,
for nothing."
"I understand," I said, "but you know I'm giving the books to you--and I
couldn't take them back again."
"Well," he said, "you're a good one, anyhow. Good-bye again," and then,
suddenly, business naturally coming uppermost, he remarked with great
enthusiasm:
"You've given me a new idea. _Say_, I'll sell 'em."
"Carry them carefully, man," I called after him; "they are precious."
So I went back to my work, thinking how many fine people there are in
this world--if you scratch 'em deep enough.
[Illustration: "Horace 'hefted' it"]
V