Perth Amboy evening news., 1903-03-30
BOOK AGENT cor EVEN.
Husband, He Retaliates by Sell
Ing Book to Ehe Wife.


lates the Star, "but the way fell
low took to get even with me yester-
day for a bit of warm talk that
was obliged to hand out to him beats
anything that has come my way
down to date.
"The chap was a book agent who
came into my office the other morn
after / had reached my desk. l was
busy with my mornings mail, and
when he unhitched the leather COW
ering around his stack of sample
copies of Photographers of the Old
Masters l simply nodded in the di-
rection of one of those No Agents
or Peddlers' signs and supposed that
he would take the hint and mosey
out. But he didn't mosey. He was
tall, heavy-set, healthy-looking in
dividual who appeared as if he might
be able to take care of himself pretty
well in scrap, and no doubt he had
fallen into the habit of presuming
upon his appearance of physical abil-
ity. anyhow he began to spread the
book out and to show me the pic
lures.
SNOW, haven't any time to fool
away with such truck as that said
to him in a pretty testy way, when
| saw that he was bound to show me
his Photographers of the Old Mas
ters, 1never bought book in my life
from a book agent, and | never am
going to buy one from book agent,
and if you've got any regard for
your tonsils and understand the
meaning of the conservation of energy
you'll traipse right out that door on
your left and let me alone
"Well, the fellow seemed to regard
my conversation as just so much
mere airy persifage.
"'But know, he put in, that If
you take but one glance at this mag
nifcent collection of perfect repro
ductions of the old masters, you will
change
81 will do nothing of the sort |
broke in, and I'm not going to take
one-eighth of one glance at the col
lection, either. I'm a patient man,
but l want you to go out of here,
and quick The gall of you people,
anyhow, prowling into a mans office
when he hasn't any more than got
down to his business little after 9
o'clock in the morning, and springing
such rot as a collection of old mas
ters on him-on your way!'
"Well, that fellow smiled right in
my teeth in a way that clearly
showed that he considered that was
delivering myself of the usual ban
then he proceeded:
"'But, sir, / hate to deprive you of
the opportunity to look over this
superb volume before you have given
yourself the chance to reflect upon
the extraordinary offer which | am
making. l am the only representa-
tive of the firm publishing this work
to cover the District Of Columbia ter
ritory, and l shall perhaps not re-
main here for more than week or
Sol shall certainly not get down
this way again. As you will see this
volume embodies the most famous
works of the most eminent of the
old masters, and it comprises nearly
800 photographers, with more than
600 pages of explanatory matter,
most of it written by the most nota-
BILE art critics of Europe, and
"'Oh, Mike-and Pat! ] yelled,
rushing to the office dor as if to sum
mon couple of porters of the pro-
portions of piano movers-I only EN-
ploy one porter, and he's rather an
anaemic-looking colored man--and
then the book agent tilted his hat to
me with a flourish and disappeared
through the other door.
''My wife greeted me at the door
when I came home that evening with
an unusually gracious manner that 1
can usually detect the meaning Of
it generally means that she's made a
purchase that's not down on the lit
tie schedule.
Well, what is it you've blown
yourself to this time?' | said to her.
You might as well tell me now, and
show it to me after dinner
"'Oh, but | know you won't be
cross about this said my wife, in a
tone of unusual confidence under the
circumstances. It's that beautiful
book that you sent that young man
up to show mel never knew before,
by the way, that you were partial to
reproductions of the old masters.
But it is such handsome volume,
and it really seems cheap at SIS,
don't you think?'
"Then she raced into the library
and brought forth the book to show
me. l was too stupefied to say any
thing for five minutes, but then l
gradually became able to gete to the
bottom of the scheme. There wasn't
much to it. The husky book agent
whom / had turned down had simply
picked up one of my business envel-
opes on his way out. Then he had
looked up my house number in the
directory, raced up to the house,
showed my wife the envelope and
told her that he had seen me and