," diagnosed Mrs
Dinkman.

While this might be superficially true, it was an unfair and unkind
thing to say, and it wounded me. I reached into my pocket and drew out
an old card--one printed before I'd had an irreconcilable difference
with the firm employing me at the time.

"I can always be reached at this address, Mrs Dinkman," I said, "should
you have any cause for dissatisfaction--which I'm sure is quite
impossible. Besides, I shall be daily in this district demonstrating the
value of Dr Francis' Lawn Tonic."

That was certainly true; unless I made a better connection. Degrading
manual labor or not, I intended to sell as many local people as possible
on the strength of having found a weak spot in the wall of
salesresistance before the effects of the Metamorphizer became apparent.
For, in strict confidence, and despite its being an undesirable negative
attitude, I was a little dubious that those effects--or lack of
them--would stimulate further sales.

_3._ My alarmclock, as it did every morning, Sundays included, rang at
sixthirty, for I am a man of habit. I turned it off, remembering
instantly I had given Miss Francis neither her pump nor her share of the
sale. Of course it was more convenient and timesaving to bring them both
together and I was sure she didnt expect me to follow instructions to
the letter, like an officeboy, any more in these matters than she had in
her restriction to agricultural use.

Still, it was remiss of me. The fact is, I had spent her money as well
as my own--not on dissipation, I hasten to say, but on dinner and an
installment of my roomrent. This was embarrassing, but I looked upon it
merely as an advance--quite as if I'd had the customary
drawingaccount--to be charged against my next commissions. My acceptance
of the advance merely indicated my faith in the future of the
Metamorphizer.

I dissolved a yeastcake in a glass of water; it's very healthy and I'd
heard it alleviated dermal irritations. Lathering my face, I glanced
over the list culled from the dictionary and stuck in the mirror the
night before, for I have never been too tired to improve my mind. By
this easy method of increasing my vocabulary I had progressed, at the
time, down to the letter K.

While drinking my coffee--never more than two cups--it was my custom to
read and digest stock and bond quotations, for though I had no
investments--the only time I had been able to take a flurry there was an
unforeseen rec