I found out something all of a sudden. I discovered that I had the art
of salesmanship. It’s an art, a qualification hard to describe. Every
man who has ever bought anything knows what it is and how it has
operated in his case.
I sold wood and lumber and sleepers--and the more I sold, the higher
rose my confidence in my personality, and I had hard work to control and
conceal my hysterics of success.
I worked off onto brick-yards even the crooked limbs, the second-grade
stuff which I had seen piling up on my operation.
With every buyer I made written contracts, designating prompt delivery
on certain dates, first deliveries to be made within a week and calling
for cash payments of two-thirds of value of wood delivered, the whole
amount to be paid when final delivery was made.
I went on down the line to another city and then to a third. I sold
wood! I sold for three days. Then I woke up and stopped selling. It
occurred to me that I might be overguessing on the resources of the
Kingsley wood-lot.
I had not a mite of trouble in arranging with the division
superintendent of the railroad line for a supply of gondola cars; I was
offering something worth his attention.
I left that gentleman in mighty abrupt fashion; he must have thought
that I was a very precipitate business man. But while I was winding
up my arrangements with him, I looked out of his office window in the
railroad station into the windows of a train which was pulling slowly
out, on its way up-country. I caught a glimpse of a stem profile with
a roll of chin-beard under it. If that face did not belong to Zebulon
Kingsley--But I did not stop to do any more thinking on the matter. I
galloped out of that office. I had to chase that train a hundred yards
down the platform--but I made the last car!
Zebulon Kingsley home ahead of schedule!
I stood on the car steps, getting my breath, giving dizzy thought to the
peril I had so narrowly missed. Zebulon Kingsley back in Levant ahead of
me, viewing his desolated wood-lot and voicing his fury! Where would my
character and importance land after that blow-up?
Did I say that my dizzy thoughts dealt with a peril I had missed? In
about ten seconds I decided that I was traveling right along with the
peril. I was doomed to drop into Levant in its company.
I might have been mistaken, I reflected. I hoped I had been deceived by
a too-hasty glance. I walked down through the train. I was pretty sure
of my man when I passed him, though I got a view of the back of his head
only. Therefore I went to the front of the car, making an excuse of
the water-cooler. I looked back at him while I drank. He seemed to be
asleep, for his head was bent down into the folds of the cape he had
pulled about his ears. I was so sure he was asleep that when I went
back up the car I gave him a bold look to convince myself I had not been
mistaken.