The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1932-01-15

which pretended to do more or less
the same thing. He believed heartily
enough in all this to hire glib young
men to go about telling people 1t was
true and trying to persuade them to
buy chokes on their representation
that it was. The only fault he had to
find with these young men was that
they didn't do it we'll enough. That
pretty well disposed of his moral su-
periority, didn't it?
Oh, he was making a mountain of a
molehill! He'd been arguing with
himself about It until he was getting
morbid. The thing to do would be to
put one of the chokes into his pocket
some day, walk into the nearest garage
he came to and sell them a dozen.
That would settle the question
whether there was anything the mat
ter with him or not; take the sting out
of Edith's II know that anybody who
was any good could sell those things"
OF course, she'd been talking about the
statesmen when she said that, not about
him. Anyhow, he'd do 1t, when he had
time, and restore his sense Of proper
tion-leave his mind free for dealing
with matters that were really i'm
portant.
Naturally he'd find it unpleasant,
man of his years and position, to start
out peddling, to try to gel. the attention
of man who was busy-or pretend
ing to be-about something else and
didn't want to listen to him; to as
sumo a manner Of hollow goodfellow-
ship f. "Say, friend, I've got some
thing here /. :"
1t made him sick to think about It.
Call it fear, If you liked. He'd do 1t
though, some time. He was going to
have to do it.
He did discharge the city salesman
and none of the applicants who an
swered his want-ad in the paper was
conceivably satisfactory. The out-of-
town salesman, too, was temporarily
laid off. Mariner was more nearly non
existent than ever. He and Edith had
the office to themselves.
There came particularly bad day /;
no orders at all in the first mail; an
obviously disingenuous letter from a
customer who owed them quite lot
of money, offering a perfectly un-
bankable ninety-day note instead of
the check Edward had counted upon
another bad debt; dun that he sim
DIV hadn't the heart to answer; tax
notice; and long chatty letter from
a bond house announcing an attractive
offering of municipal tax-eXempt Sc
curities; that was all. Nothing to do
Out-of-doors, the day was ironically
fine: the sky, a pitiless cold blue; the
winters sun, in great, broad, golden
splashes, making mockery of his
DESPAIR. He shut his book and put
down his pen. Edith at that moment
had gone into the shop for consulta-
ton with Charlie Franklin. He got
up and put on his hat and overcoat.
With hands that trembled, he picked
up a sample choke and slipped it,
along with a pad of order blanks, into
his pocket.
"I've got to go out for WHILE" he told
Edith, when she came back into the
office. II may not be back before
lunch"
Well, he'd got out, anyway, he re-
Elected, as he closed the door behind
him. He was safe so far. Edith
hadn't remarked anything queer about
his voice.
He walked away without direction,
with no conscious objective His hands
were in his overcoat pockets and his
fingers became conscious Of the thing
they were gripping-that id auto
choke! He'd left the office with the
idea Of making a sale, and with some
unrecorded vow that he wouldn't come
back until he had made sale.
He was passing big public garage
now, and he paused before the show
window. They had all sorts of access
series in there. Why didn't he make
his beginning here? Why didn't he go
inside and find the boss? And say
"Can interest you :"
He turned and walked hastily, al