Jimmy retired to the smoking compartment in the Pullman and sat down to
think it all over. It had but one other occupant, a huge man with heavy
shoulders who lowered the paper he had been reading and looked at Jimmy
through a pair of clear, gray, appraising eyes that conveyed such a
sense of directness as to slightly disconcert one with a guilty
conscience.
"Great Scott!" thought Jimmy. "Hope he's not a sheriff or a United
States marshal looking for me," and then indulged in an inward smile at
the absurdity of his being of sufficient importance to have a federal
officer on his trail. He seated himself and took a furtive glance at the
man's face. It was a distinctly attractive face, due to its marked
indications of character. It expressed not only firmness and
intelligence but a sense of humor. Jimmy decided that this individual
should appreciate a joke and wondered who he was.
"Funny old chap," he thought. "Might be a banker, but I think he's a
drummer. Wonder who he's out for? Somehow he's mighty familiar; but
surely I'd never forget an old Trojan like that. Maybe I've met him
sometime, and he's got all that gray around his temples since then. Gray
hairs do make a difference."
He was still puzzling over this lost identity when the man laid the
newspaper to one side, lighted a fresh cigar and, turning toward Jimmy,
said, "Funny about that affair over in Yimville, isn't it? Have you read
about it?"
Jimmy had to look away lest the twinkle in his eyes betray him, and then
decided his best policy would be to take it with a laugh. A laugh he
decided was the most disarming of human manifestations. He emitted one.
"Yes, I read about it in the papers yesterday and to-day. That fellow at
Yimville does seem to have kicked up an amusing controversy. One set of
papers says he was mobbed, and the other that he made a hit.
But--pshaw!--of course it has no effect whatever on Judge Granger's
chances for the nomination! Tempest in a child's teapot that will last
about as long."
"Perhaps! I'm not to sure about that. Moreover, I'm not so certain that
Granger, unmolested, could have got the nomination. He would have been
up against a good stiff fight. I understand that he's a trifle too
self-satisfied to be a very popular candidate. Nothing hurts a man with
a swelled head like ridicule. Ridicule will trim men that can't be
touched with any other weapon under the sun. And--" he chuckled as if
amused--"the whole state has something to laugh over now, whether he
made that speech, or whether he didn't!"
The man looked out of the window for a moment and then, as if no longer
interested in the Yimville episode, inquired, "Didn't I see you getting
some sample cases aboard the train? What's your line?"
"Chocolates. Columbus Chocolate Co. of New York. Are you on the road?"
"Well, not exactly. I'm in water power plants at present."
"Something I don't know much about," said Jimmy. "But I wish I did.
Mighty interesting. In fact I never took the trouble to look one over
until a little while ago."
"Where was that?" inquired the man.
"Up at a place called Princetown. Good water power there. Big plant, I
suppose you would call it."
"Yes, I suppose they have good power up there. I have heard so," said
the man, inspecting the ash of his cigar as if interested in how long it
would last without breaking. "Let's see--automobile factory there, isn't
there?"
"Yes. Sayers Automobile Company. Fine cars, too, but unknown except out
here. At least I should say so. That's the trouble with half the
enterprises in the country. They can make first class articles but they
can't sell them. Sometimes I think we Americans aren't such good
hustlers after all. We've got the reputation in Europe, I am told, of
blowing about our stuff; but I'm not certain that we do. If I were a
manufacturer, I'd not make anything that wasn't the best I could make.
I'd put everything I knew and everything I could learn into whatever I
made. I'd not have a man work for me fifteen minutes if he didn't
believe that it was the best thing of its kind on earth. And then I'd
know that when that man went out and talked about my line of goods,
whether he was a salesman or not, he'd swear that it was the best on
earth."
The man smiled, "In other words, even your workmen blowing, eh?"
"I don't think it's blowing to say what you honestly believe about your
line. When a man is absolutely convinced that he is offering the very
best thing on the market and gets hot under the collar if anybody
questions it, he becomes a good salesman. He never can be that unless he
is honestly positive that he is talking truth. Telling the truth isn't
boasting. It's the way to sell goods. Blowing means ignorance or lying.
A man can not lie about anything he has to sell--if it's nothing bigger
than hairpins--and get away with it very long. I never lie about my
line--never! I really believe that some of our stuff is the best of its
kind made. I say so. I honestly admit it when some other house brings
out a certain line that beats ours, and then I hustle back home and put
on my spurs, and get out my hammer, and try to get my firm to see it,
and to meet the new stuff and if possible to go it one better."
Jimmy had forgotten all about Yimville, now that he was expatiating on a
pet hobby of his. Evidently, too, Yimville had passed from the mind of
his companion, who seemed pondering over salesmanship.
"But--but how would it be applicable to power plants?" he demanded.
"I don't know," admitted Jim, "but the principle is the same for
chocolates, or power plants or--automobiles. That's what started me
off--those Sayers automobiles. I never heard about that car until I saw
one in the street. I don't know anything about them. But the one I saw
looked so pretty that I talked with the man who owned it, and he was in
love with the thing. So, because I never heard of it, and no one else
seemed to have done so, it proves that there's something wrong with the
Sayers selling organization. They haven't handled their capital right,
because every dollar invested in advertising is a dollar in the value of
the plant--in that intangible asset called 'goodwill,' without which
neither a house nor a man can succeed."
"Young man," said his companion, "you are in the wrong line. You ought
to be selling advertising space. I told you I was in power plants
but--I'm in some other things as well. Did you ever solicit advertising
contracts for any first class advertising firm?"
"I never did," admitted Jimmy, "But I have given some advice about
advertising that has paid the purchasers. And I've pondered over sales
organization for years. I tell you--it's a science! If ever I get a
chance to test these theories of mine--I'll----" He paused as if ashamed
of his serious enthusiasm, and as usual, derided them--"I'll probably
fail!"
"Why deride yourself?" queried the man, regarding Jim with grave and
interested eyes. "If sales organization is a hobby of yours, why not
ride it? Evidently you've thought about it somewhat. What is wrong with
the average sales organization? Where does it fail? What improvements
can you suggest in prevalent methods? Have you thought of anything new
and original to improve them? If so, I'd like to hear about it, because
I'm one of those who are never too old to learn."
Jimmy accepted and launched into his argument with all the vim of an
enthusiast discussing a subject to which he had given thought.
"Have you got one of your personal cards with you? Hope you don't think
I'm impertinent," said the man, after Jimmy had run down.
Jimmy laughed and gave him the card and while he wondered what was
coming next, his companion carefully slipped it into his pocketbook.
"If ever you decide to get out of chocolates," he said, thoughtfully,
"you might call on me--or--let's see! Here!" He took another card from
his pocket just as the train came to a stop and the porter came hurrying
in and shouted, "Sorry, sah! Done forgot to call you sooner. Corinth!"
Both Jim and his fellow traveler jumped to their feet and hastened out.
Jimmy saw that the card was that of "Mr. Charles W. Martin, Suites
105-7-9-11 Z, Flat Iron Bldg., New York. Specialist in everything
pertaining to power plants."
Out on the platform Martin asked, "Where do you stop here in Corinth,
Mr. Gollop?"
"At the City Hotel," said Jimmy. "Good sample rooms there. Good grub.
Good beds."
"I think I'll go there, too," said Martin, and together they entered the
hotel bus and were driven away.
As usual Jimmy was welcomed by his first name, and informed that there
was some mail there for him. When he looked around from its perusal
Martin had disappeared and he did not meet him again until he was seated
in a corner of the restaurant alone, when a voice behind him said, "Hope
you don't mind if I join you, Mr. Gollop," and looked up to see his
traveling companion.
"Not at all, Mr. Martin," he replied. "Always glad to have good company.
I'm a sociable sort of cuss myself. I detest traveling alone, eating
alone, or loafing alone. I suppose I'm gregarious."
A troubled, thoughtful shadow chased itself over the elder man's face,
as he said, with a half-sigh, "I understand. It's not good for a man to
be alone. And the older he becomes, the more he feels lonesomeness, and
the more he wants--home!"
The word was the magic one for Jimmy. Somehow that word always moved him
and brought out his great undercurrent.
"Why, do you know," he said, leaning across the table with shining eyes,
"if I didn't have a home to go to, always, after I've made my round,
I'd be like a horse that had been robbed of his stall? I live for it! I
work for it! I look forward to it all the time! But you see, I'm
different than most men. Luckier, I think, because my mother's there!
And if I didn't have a thing in the world but her, I'd be rich. And if I
had everything else but her, I'd be poor! I'm mighty proud of my home
and my mother. I shall be leaving here for home to-morrow afternoon,"
continued Jimmy. "After I've hustled around and seen about a dozen
customers. Being a drummer and having a craze for home, are two pretty
tough propositions to combine. But--what would home be without
chocolates? Why, do you know, I don't think I'd have been able to have a
home at all without 'em! By chocolates Maw and I live or die. Funny,
isn't it, that if there was an earthquake that wiped a spot off the maps
and hurt me when I read about it, I'd keep going on just about the same;
but if everybody stopped eating chocolates, I'd be wiped off the map,
and I reckon the world would be going on just the same? Sometimes I
think every man's world is the smallest thing there is because it's
bounded only by his own happiness or tragedy. He's just one of
billions, but if his pet dog dies, he's astonished because the universe
isn't covered with gloom and probably he's the only one that's sorry
about the dog, or that even knows the dog has croaked. Maybe somebody
else hears about it and is glad--the chap that the dog bit the week
before he went to dog-heaven. But--anyhow--I'm bound for home to-morrow.
Back to Baltimore, as the song goes."
"Baltimore?" said Martin. "That's a coincidence! I go to Baltimore
myself to-morrow. Struthers people. Know them? Make tools of precision."
"Everybody in Baltimore knows of them," declared Jim with full civic
pride.
"I shall take the two-thirty train," said Martin. "Maybe we shall travel
together."
"That's the one I take," said Jim. "Match you to see who engages berths
for both of us."
"I'll gladly engage one for you without matching," declared Martin, a
proffer which Jim immediately accepted.
They lounged together that evening, and the more Jimmy knew of Martin,
the better he liked him. There was something homely and sane about the
man that appealed to him. For a time he kept subconsciously questioning
why he maintained a peculiar feeling that this was not the first time
they had met; yet this sense of unrest was dissipated by the respect he
had formed for him, quite unaccountably. He was, indeed, surprised with
himself for his liking when he realized how satisfactory it was to have
Martin sharing his journey on the following day. In his perpetual
journeyings he had met many men who were congenial, men of the
goodfellow type, but here was a man who had but little of the customary
"goodfellow" attributes and habits, and who yet won his regard. There
was the disparity of ages, the contrast of taciturnity with free
expression, and a large lack of mutual experience; but somehow all these
barriers were not supervened to the detriment of their fellowship. Jim
felt as if he were with an acquaintance--most friendly too--of years
standing, long before they arrived at Baltimore.
"Perhaps you can recommend me to a good hotel," said Martin, as they
neared their destination. "I've never stopped in Baltimore. In fact, I'm
a total stranger there."
"Why stop at a hotel at all?" suggested Jimmy, generously. "Why not come
out and put up with me? My mother's the finest there is! We're pretty
plain people, but it ought to beat being in a hotel. I'll have three
days home this time, and I'll show you down to Struthers' place, and--by
jingoes!--you shall be introduced to big Bill, my pet tree, in his
winter clothes, and if I can't make you believe in Maryland hospitality,
it won't be my fault."
Martin accepted as directly as he appeared to decide everything. And the
beauty of it was that Mrs. Gollop, who shared her son's hospitable
nature, accepted and made welcome the guest that Jimmy brought home as
if she were thoroughly accustomed to her son's unconventional methods.
"Does he always bring strangers home like this?" asked Martin, with a
faint smile, on the second day of his visit after Jim's mother had been
eloquently expatiating on Jim's idiosyncrasies and virtues during the
latter's temporary absence.
"You never can tell what Jimmy will do," she replied with a laugh, and
then thoughtfully stared through her window into the street. "But I am
always certain that he will do the honest, decent, and generous action.
He laughs his way through the world, but in the laugh is never malice
nor cruelty. His sole failing is that he cannot resist a joke. He has
always been so. His sense of the ridiculous is absurdly out of
proportion to his serious side. I used to feel hopeless for his future
because he laughed so much; but now I know the difference. One may still
laugh and be loyal in all things. He has no false ideas or unattainable
ambitions. He has no false pride. He believes in doing his best in all
things. He is sorry for those who are unfortunate, and unenvious of
those who have succeeded. He is sincere, and he is unassuming, a good
friend, and a tolerant enemy. His tastes are simple, his pleasures
homely."
She stopped, flushed and, added, "But I boast too much! Yet I can't help
it because--well--because there has never been such a son as mine, and
I'm not ashamed to feel proud of him!"
But Mr. Martin was now looking out of the window, and, Mr. Martin did
not smile.