river, learning the stock. He discovered before the end of the first day
that he had never yet guessed what "hardware" meant; he wandered through
the mazes of the vast warehouses until his legs ached much and his eyes
ached more.

At last came the day when he found himself on the road, not alone, of
course, but in tow of Fred Finch, an old Cummings salesman who had
occasionally "made" Delafield. The Cummings people did not throw their
new men overboard and let them swim if they could. They had a careful
training system, of which the stockroom days were one part, and this
personally conducted introduction to the road was another.

Albert Drury had been sufficiently interested in his brother's wish to
drop a hint to McDougall, to which that hard-headed executive would have
paid no attention if it had not fitted in just then with the
requirements of his sales policy. But the hint sent J.W. out with Finch
over the longest route which the house worked for trade. On the map this
route was a great kite-shaped thing, with its point at Saint Louis, and
the whole Southwest this side of the Colorado River included in the
sweep of its sides and top.

To Fred Finch it was a weary journey, but J.W. gave no thought to its
discomforts. He was seeing the country, as well as learning to sell
hardware, and both occupations were highly absorbing. Before long he
found too that he was seeing a new people. Storekeepers he knew, as
being of his own guild; the small towns were much like Delafield, when
you had become used to their newer crudeness of architecture and their
sprawling planlessness; and the people who used hardware were very much
like his customers at home.

He had no fear of failing to become a salesman, after the first few
experiences under Finch's watchful eye; his father had taught him a sort
of salesmanship which experience could only make more effective. He knew
already never to sell what he could see his customer ought not to buy,
and he knew always to contrive as much as possible that the customer
should do the selling to himself. The elder Farwell used to say, "Let
your customer once see the advantage that buying is to him, and he won't
care what advantage selling is to you."

Now, as has been said before, this is not a salesman's story. Let it
suffice to say that before the two got back to Saint Louis J.W. knew he
had found his trade. He was a natural salesman, and so Fred Finch
reported to Peter McDougall. "If it's