“Well,” he confessed, “we’ve all got a weak spot.”
“And what’s yours?”
“Vanity,” he said.
“Well,” I told him, “you’ve succeeded in getting me to sign on. Now
I want to sign off, and I am paying you two hundred dollars for ten
minutes’ work. Isn’t that enough for your pride?”
“No,” he answered. “You see, all the rest of the bunch have been
working Wall Street for months and failed to make expenses. They said
it was the fault of the goods and the territory. So the office sent for
me to prove that the fault was with their salesmanship and not with
the books or the place. They were working on a 25 per cent commission.
I was in Cleveland, where I sold eighty-two sets in two weeks. I am
here to sell a certain number of sets not only to people who did not
buy from the other agents but to people they couldn’t even get to see.
That’s why they give me 33⅓ per cent.”
“I can’t quite figure out how you sold me that set.”
“Why,” he said consolingly, “I sold J. P. Morgan a set.”
“No, you didn’t,” I said.
He wasn’t angry. He simply said, “Honest, I did.”
“A set of Walter Scott to J. P. Morgan, who not only has some fine
editions but probably the original manuscripts of some of the novels as
well?”
“Well, here’s his John Hancock.” And he promptly flashed on me a
contract signed by J. P. Morgan himself. It might not have been Mr.
Morgan’s signature, but it did not occur to me to doubt it at the time.
Didn’t he have mine in his pocket? All I felt was curiosity. So I asked
him, “How did you get past the librarian?”
“I didn’t see any librarian. I saw the Old Man himself. In the office.”
“That’s too much!” I said. Everybody knew that it was much harder to
get into Mr. Morgan’s private office empty handed than into the White
House with a parcel that ticked like an alarm clock.
But he declared, “I did.”
“But how did you get into his office?”
“How did I get into yours?” he retorted.
“I don’t know. You tell me,” I said.
“Well, the way I got into Morgan’s office and the way I got into yours
are the same. I just talked to the fellow at the door whose business it
was not to let me in. And the way I got Morgan to sign was the same
way I got you to sign. You weren’t signing a contract for a set of
books. You just took the fountain pen I gave you and did what I asked
you to do with it. No difference. Same as you.”
“And is that really Morgan’s signature?” I asked him, about three
minutes late with my skepticism.
“Sure! He learned how to write his name when he was a boy.”
“And that’s all there is to it?”
“That’s all,” he answered. “I know exactly what I am doing. That’s
all the secret there is. I am much obliged to you. Good day, Mr.
Livingston.” And he started to go out.
“Hold on,” I said. “I’m bound to have you make an even two hundred
dollars out of me.” And I handed him thirty-five dollars.
He shook his head. Then: “No,” he said. “I can’t do that. But I can do
this!” And he took the contract from his pocket, tore it in two and
gave me the pieces.
I counted two hundred dollars and held the money before him, but he
again shook his head.
“Isn’t that what you meant?” I said.
“No.”
“Then, why did you tear up the contract?”
“Because you did not whine, but took it as I would have taken it myself
had I been in your place.”
“But I offered you the two hundred dollars of my own accord,” I said.
“I know; but money isn’t everything.”
Something in his voice made me say, “You’re right; it isn’t. And now
what do you really want me to do for you?”
“You’re quick, aren’t you?” he said. “Do you really want to do
something for me?”
“Yes,” I told him, “I do. But whether I will or not depends what it is
you have in mind.”
“Take me with you into Mr. Ed Harding’s office and tell him to let me
talk to him three minutes by the clock. Then leave me alone with him.”