"What?" squeals the wife. "Are you and Eve engaged? And she never said a word to me!" "How could she?" I says. "When he prob'ly had her doped?" "No, we ain't engaged," says Alex. "I ain't even asked the girl will she be mine yet." "Then how do you know she'll marry you?" asks the wife. "Well," says Alex, "I figure if you married this here pest, I ought to be able to marry anybody! But what I'm up against is this--I got to take one of them roadsters up there to-day and demonstrate it to Sampson. They have gone to work and made an appointment for me, and what I don't know about automobiles would fill seven large libraries. Here I'm supposed to show Mister Sampson the points on our car which is better than any other and I can't tell the windshield from the magneto. Now d'ye blame me for bein' worried?" "I thought you was the world's greatest salesman," I sneers. "You don't mean to say this job has got you yellin' for the police already, do you? What are you gonna do, quit?" "Speak English!" he comes back. "That word quit don't belong in our language. Who said anything about quittin'? Even though I don't know a thing about automobiles, I'm gonna sell Runyon Q. Sampson a Gaflooey chummy roadster. A feller don't need knowledge to be a success half as much as he needs confidence and I got more confidence than a feller shootin' at a barn with a double-barrelled shot gun. Anyhow, I'll betcha a rich millionaire like Sampson don't know any too much about automobiles himself, bein' too busy with makin' money and the like, eh?" "I suppose you're gonna make him think that you know more about them gas buckboards than the guy which wrote 'em, eh?" I says. "You'll never get nowhere!" he answers, lookin' at me like how can a guy live and be so thick behind the ears. "You'll never be nothin' but an average citizen, because you never get a new idea! No, I ain't gonna make Sampson think _I_ know more about automobiles than anybody in the world--that's what has queered many a sale. I'm gonna make him think _he_ does, and that him buyin' our roadster proves it!" "I'll bet you could make Rockefeller think they wasn't a nickel in oil!" says the wife admirin'ly. Alex gets up and reaches for his hat. "If they was enough money in it for me, I'd try it," he says, "and that ain't no lie!" I didn't see Alex till the next mornin' and then he blows in the flat. "Hello!" he says. "Here you are as usual, loafin' away the hull mornin'. It's almost eight o'clock, d'ye know that?" "Sure!" I says. "You can't get me on that one. The answer is seven fifty-five!" "What d'ye mean, seven fifty-five?" he asks. "Ain't seven fifty-five almost eight o'clock," I says, "and didn't you ask me if I knew it?" "Ain't he clever?" says the wife, pattin' me on the back. Alex looks at me in open disgust. "If that's bein' clever," he says, "I'm a professor from Harvard! Where d'ye get that stuff?"