e throws a pillow at me and it busted a vase that cost me three
hundred green certificates. After a short brawl over the remains, I
laid off Alex and he went ahead.

"As I said before," he goes on, "the president of the Gaflooey Company
has selected me to go up and sell old Sampson this here chummy
roadster. If I land the order, which naturally enough I will, it means
I get made manager of the New York salesrooms. Then me and Eve
Rossiter will prob'ly get married and--"

"What?" squeals the wife. "Are you and Eve engaged? And she never
said a word to me!"

"How could she?" I says. "When he prob'ly had her doped?"

"No, we ain't engaged," says Alex. "I ain't even asked the girl will
she be mine yet."

"Then how do you know she'll marry you?" asks the wife.

"Well," says Alex, "I figure if you married this here pest, I ought to
be able to marry anybody! But what I'm up against is this--I got to
take one of them roadsters up there to-day and demonstrate it to
Sampson. They have gone to work and made an appointment for me, and
what I don't know about automobiles would fill seven large libraries.
Here I'm supposed to show Mister Sampson the points on our car which is
better than any other and I can't tell the windshield from the magneto.
Now d'ye blame me for bein' worried?"

"I thought you was the world's greatest salesman," I sneers. "You
don't mean to say this job has got you yellin' for the police already,
do you? What are you gonna do, quit?"

"Speak English!" he comes back. "That word quit don't belong in our
language. Who said anything about quittin'? Even though I don't know
a thing about automobiles, I'm gonna sell Runyon Q. Sampson a Gaflooey
chummy roadster. A feller don't need knowledge to be a success half as
much as he needs confidence and I got more confidence than a feller
shootin' at a barn with a double-barrelled shot gun. Anyhow, I'll
betcha a rich millionaire like Sampson don't know any too much about
automobiles himself, bein' too busy with makin' money and the like, eh?"

"I suppose you're gonna make him think that you know more about them
gas buckboards than the guy which wrote 'em, eh?" I says.

"You'll never get nowhere!" he answers, lookin' at me like how can a
guy live and be so thick behind the ears. "You'll never be nothin' but
an average citizen, because you never get a new idea! No, I ain't
gonna make Sampson think _I_ know more about automobiles than anybody
in th