re Mr. Truax had been recognizing Una as an intelligence, and
often he teased her regarding her admiration for Mr. Fein's efficiency.
Now he seemed almost to be looking to her for advice as he plaintively
rambled on:

"Every salesman on the staff has tried to sell this asinine Boutell
family and failed. We've got the lots--give 'em anything from a
fifteen-thousand-dollar-restriction, water-front, high-class development
to an odd lot behind an Italian truck-farm. They've been considering a
lot at Villa Estates for a month, now, and they aren't--"

"Let me try them."

"Let you try them?"

"Try to sell them."

"Of course, if you want to--in your own time outside. This is a matter
that the selling department ought to have disposed of. But if you want
to try--"

"I will. I'll try them on a Saturday afternoon--next Saturday."

"But what do you know about Villa Estates?"

"I walked all over it, just last Sunday. Talked to the resident salesman
for an hour."

"That's good. I wish all our salesmen would do something like that."

All week Una planned to attack the redoubtable Boutells. She telephoned
(sounding as well-bred and clever as she could) and made an appointment
for Saturday afternoon. The Boutells were going to a matinee, Mrs.
Boutell's grating voice informed her, but they would be pleased t' see
Mrs. Schwirtz after the show. All week Una asked advice of "Chas.," the
sales-manager, who, between extensive exhortations to keep away from
selling--"because it's the hardest part of the game, and, believe me, it
gets the least gratitude"--gave her instructions in the tactics of
"presenting a proposition to a client," "convincing a prospect of the
salesman's expert knowledge of values," "clinching the deal," "talking
points," and "desirability of location."

Wednesday evening Una went out to Villa Estates to look it over again,
and she conducted a long, imaginary conversation with the Boutells
regarding the nearness of the best school in Nassau County.

But on Saturday morning she felt ill. At the office she wailed on the
shoulder of a friendly stenographer that she would never be able to
follow up this, her first chance to advance.

She went home at noon and slept till four. She arrived at the Boutells'
flat looking like a dead leaf. She tried to skip into the presence of
Mrs. Boutell--a dragon with a frizz--and was heavily informed that Mr.
Boutell wouldn't be back till six, and that, anyway, they had "talked