than entirely contemptible. The commercial traveller
is beneath satire, and outside the region of sympathy. If he appears at
all in fiction or on the stage, he is irredeemably vulgar. He is
never heroic, never even a villain, rarely comic, always, poor man,
objectionable. This is a peculiar thing in the literature of a people
like the English, who are not ashamed to glory in their commercial
success, and are always ready to cheer a politician who professes to
have the interests of trade at heart. Amid the current eulogies of
the working man and the apotheosis of the beings called 'Captains
of Industry,' the bagman surely ought to find at least an apologist.
Without him it seems likely that many articles would fail to find a
place in the windows of the provincial shopkeepers. Without him large
sections of the public would probably remain ignorant for years of new
brands of cigarettes, and dyspeptic people might never come across the
foods which Americans prepare for their use.

Also the individual bagman is often not without his charm. He knows, if
not courts and princes, at least hotels and railway companies. He is on
terms of easy familiarity with every 'boots' in several counties. He can
calculate to a nicety how long a train is likely to be delayed by a fair
'somewhere along the line.' He is also full of information about local
politics. In Connaught, for instance, an experienced member of the
profession will gauge for you the exact strength of the existing League
in any district. He knows what publicans may be regarded as 'priest's
men,' and who have leanings towards independence. His knowledge is
frequently minute, and he can prophesy the result of a District Council
election by reckoning up the number of leading men who read the _United
Irishman_, and weighing them against those who delight in the pages of
the _Leader_. The men who can do these things are themselves local. They
reside in their district, and, as a rule, push the sales and collect the
debts of local brewers and flour-merchants. The representatives of the
larger English firms only make their rounds twice or three times a year,
and are less interesting. They pay the penalty of being cosmopolitan,
and tend to become superficial in their judgment of men and things.

Hyacinth, like most members of the public, was ignorant of the greatness
and interest of his new profession. He entered upon it with some
misgiving, and viewed his trunk of sample blankets a