here
to-day. Nope, you can't do that in New York!"

"Another of them there New Yorkers, hey?" sneers Alex to me, after Buck
has blowed. "Don't you see how that feller proves my argyment about
how simple it is to make good here? From the way he's dressed--them,
now, diamonds and so forth--he's probably a big feller in his line.
Makin' plenty of money and looked on as a success by the ig'rant. Yet
he lets a big order get away from him when it was practically a cinch
to land it!"

"Say, listen!" I yelps--this bird was gettin' on my nerves. "If
four-flushin' was water, you'd be the Pacific Ocean! You gimme a pain
with that line of patter you got, and as far as salesmanship is
concerned, I'll bet you couldn't sell a porterhouse steak to a guy
dyin' of hunger. I'd like to see _you_ land an order like Buck spoke
of, you--"

"That's just what you're gonna do!" he butts in. "You're gonna see
_me_ land that very order he told us about--what d'ye think of that,
hey?"

I stopped dead and gazed upon him.

"You're gonna which?" I asks him.

"I'm gonna land that order from that department store!" he repeats,
grabbin' my arm. "C'mon--show me how to get there!"

I fell up against a lamp post and laughed till a passin' dame remarked
to her friend that it was an outrage the way some guys drank. Then I
led Alex to the subway.

"Listen," I says. "What about this job you was gonna get? Of course
you know if you quit, I win the bet."

"Quit?" he says. "Where have I heard the word before? Who said
anything about quittin'? I'm gonna get that order and I'm gonna get
that job!"

"Fair enough!" I tells him, "but you're goin' at the thing backwards.
How are you gonna take an order for autos when you ain't got no autos
to sell? I suppose you figure on grabbin' the ten thousand dollar job
first and then makin' good with a loud crash by landin' the big order,
eh?"

He shakes his head and sighs pityin'ly.

"Would there be anything new and original about that?" he asks.

"No!" I says, "there wouldn't! But I don't see how you're gonna win
out any other way."

"Of course you don't!" he sneers. "You're a New Yorker, ain't you?
I'm supposed to be the rube, simply because I wasn't born on Sixth
Avenue. Now I already told you my methods was new, didn't I? Anybody
would work the thing the way you lay it out--and probably land neither
the job nor the order. What a chance would I have goin' up there and
askin' for that j