ss Sally, with an invitation in his
eyes. For a minute she stood looking down at him doubtfully. She was
unable to understand the actions of this new variety of book agent that
refused to sell books after talking up to the selling point, and she
suddenly remembered that she was away from home, and that the book was
sold on installments. She flushed. Did his refusal to sell imply that
she might not be able to pay the installments?

"I'll take a copy of that book, IF you please," she said haughtily.
"I guess there ain't no question but that I'm able to PAY for it. I've
bought books before, and paid for them; and I guess I'm just as able
to pay as most folks you sell to. If you've any doubt about it, there's
references I can give right here in Clarence that will satisfy you."

Eliph' Hewlitt coughed gently behind his hand, and stroked his whiskers,
as he looked up at the indignant Miss Briggs. He did not want to sell
her a book' it would place him in her mind once, and, probably, for all,
as one of the tribe of book agents, and nothing more. Yet he could not
offend her. He might compromise by giving her a copy, but the chapter
on "Courtship--How to Win the Affections," distinctly advised this as a
later act. First it was necessary to become well acquainted; then it was
advisable to proceed to give small presents, books or flowers or sweets
being particularly mentioned, and Eliph' Hewlitt would never have
thought of doing first the thing Jarby's Encyclopedia advised doing
second. He had been selling Jarby's for many years. He had seen the
"talking feature" of the colored plates of the Civil War pass, and had
seen them succeeded by colored plates of the Franco-Prussian War, and
had seen these make way for colored plates of one war after another
until the present plates of the Spanish War appeared, and through all
these changes in the last chapter he had studied the book until he knew
its contents as well as he knew his "two--times--two." He could recite
the book forward or backward, read it upside down--as a book agent has
to read a book when it is in a customer's lap--or sideways, and could
turn promptly to nearly any word in it without hesitation. The more he
studied it the more he loved it and admired it and believed in it. It
was his whole literature, and he found it to be sufficient. If he saw a
thing in Jarby's he knew it was so, and if it was not in Jarby's it was
not worth knowing. Under such circumstances he could n