outhed negroes for eight dollars each, two
dollars and a half down and the rest in monthly payments. His sales were
enormous. Then he went his rounds all over again and offered to close
out the remaining five dollars and a half due him by a final payment of
two dollars and a half each. In nearly every case the bait was
swallowed, and on each Bible he thus cleared four dollars and twenty
cents net!

Running the elevator in the building where a prominent publishing firm
had its office was a negro of more than ordinary intelligence. The firm
had just published a subscription book on mechanical engineering, a
chapter of which was devoted to the construction and operation of
passenger elevators. One of the agents selling the book thought he might
find a customer in Washington.

"Wash," said the book-agent, "you ought to buy a copy of this book, do
you know it?"

"No, boss, don't want no books. Don't git no time fo' readin' books,"
drawled Wash. "It teks all mah time to run dis elevator."

"But this book will help you to run your elevator. See here: there's a
whole chapter here on elevators," persisted the canvasser.

"Don't want no help to run dis elevator," said the darky. "Dis elevator
runs all right now."

"But," said the canvasser, "this will help you to run it better. You
will know twice as much when you get through."

"No, boss, no, dat's just it," returned Wash. "Don't want to learn
nothing, boss," he said. "Why, boss, I know more now than I git paid
for."

There was one New York newspaper that prided itself on its huge
circulation, and its advertising canvassers were particularly insistent
in securing the advertisements of publishers. Of course, the real
purpose of the paper was to secure a certain standing for itself, which
it lacked, rather than to be of any service to the publishers.

By dint of perseverance, its agents finally secured from one of the
ten-cent magazines, then so numerous, a large advertisement of a special
number, and in order to test the drawing power of the newspaper as a
medium, there was inserted a line in large black type:

"SEND TEN CENTS FOR A NUMBER."

But the compositor felt that magazine literature should be even cheaper
than it was, and to that thought in his mind his fingers responded, so
that when the advertisement appeared, this particular bold-type line
read:

"SEND TEN CENTS FOR A YEAR."

This wonderful offer appealed with singular force to the class of
readers of