ne of these days. It's down in the
books. I know I shall live to be a rich man, just as well as I know that
I'm walking down Dean Street with Miss. Lord.'

'I should think it very possible,' his companion remarked.

'It hasn't begun yet. I can only lay my hand on a few hundred pounds,
one way and another. And I'm turned thirty. But the next ten years are
going to do it. Do you know what I did last Saturday? I got fifteen
hundred pounds' worth of advertising for our people, from a chap that's
never yet put a penny into the hands of an agent. I went down and talked
to him like a father. He was the hardest nut I ever had to crack, but in
thirty-five minutes I'd got him--like a roach on a hook. And it'll be
to his advantage, mind you. That fifteen hundred 'll bring him in more
business than he's had for ten years past. I got him to confess he was
going down the hill. "Of course," I said, "because you don't know how to
advertise, and won't let anybody else know for you?" In a few minutes
he was telling me he'd dropped more than a thousand on a patent that
was out of date before it got fairly going. "All right," said I. "Here's
your new cooking-stove. You've dropped a thousand on the other thing;
give your advertising to us, and I'll guarantee you shall come home on
the cooking-stove."'

'Come home on it?' Nancy inquired, in astonishment.

'Oh, it's our way of talking,' said the other, with his hearty laugh.
'It means to make up one's loss. And he'll do it. And when he has, he'll
think no end of me.'

'I daresay.'

'Not long ago, I boxed a chap for his advertising. A fair turn-up with
the gloves. Do you suppose I licked him? Not I; though I could have done
it with one hand. I just let him knock me out of time, and two minutes
after he put all his business into my hands.'

'Oh, you'll get rich,' declared Nancy, laughing. 'No doubt about it.'

'There was a spot down the South Western Railway where we wanted to
stick up a board, a great big board, as ugly as they make 'em. It was in
a man's garden; a certain particular place, where the trains slow, and
folks have time to read the advertisement and meditate on it. That
chap wouldn't listen. What! spoil his garden with our da----with our
confounded board! not for five hundred a year! Well, I went down, and I
talked to him--'

'Like a father,' put in Nancy.

'Just so, like a father. "Look here," said I, "my dear sir, you're
impeding the progress of civilisation. How cou