"You're crazy!" bellers Alex, gettin' more and more excited. "You had nothin' to do with this thing--you didn't know the coats was no good. Forget about that, the thing is you got a chance right now to put over a bigger thing than them overcoats. You come here to make a sale, didn't you? All right, go to it! That officer is connected with the purchasin' department of the government, and he wasted a lot of time talkin' to you about that truck. Do you realize what a wonderful thing that was to get down here O.K. in that terrible storm yesterday? No--_you_ don't, but _he_ did! Right now he's got that there truck on his mind. Go after him before he gets inside the buildin' and make your sale!" "But," says Wilkinson, kinda dazed, "what have I got to sell? The overcoats are--" "Damn the overcoats!" hollers Alex. "Sell him the truck that brought 'em down--they ain't nothin' wrong with that! If it's good enough for a trip like that, it's good enough for the army, ain't it? Hurry up and make an appointment with him for to-day, and I'll get you the figures on the Gaflooey truck for a hundred or a million--I know 'em by heart!" "By Heavens, I'll chance it!" says Wilkinson, and runs after the officer. Comin' up on the train that night I sit in the smoker and write Alex my check for a thousand berries. They was no two ways about it as he showed me, because he had bet he would make Wilkinson put over a sale in Washington. He didn't say _what_ he had to sell. The lovely Wilkinson, which has sent about five dollars' worth of night letters to his wife, is sittin' on the other side, delirious with joy and with a order in his pocket for one thousand Gaflooey trucks as per the one we come down in. Alex had wired the Gaflooey people and had Wilkinson appointed a salesman for the Washington territory on his recommendation. Them guys would do anything for Alex, because he put 'em on the map. With telegraphed credentials from New York, the rest was a cinch for even the lovely Wilkinson, because the truck sold itself! "They is only one thing that beats me," I says to Alex before we turn in on the sleeper. "Why didn't _you_ sell the truck and make all the dough yourself?" "Its a good thing you don't need brains in your game," says Alex, "or you and Alice would starve! I wanted Wilkinson to make the sale all by himself, because it will give him confidence, and then, again, he'll advertise me. I get half of his commission, I grab a bonus from the Gaflooey people for helpin' the sale along and then there's that thousand bucks of yours, which I would of lost if I sold the trucks myself. Also, I have put Mister Wilkinson over, and that's what I started out to do!" "You win!" I says. "I don't see how you get away with it. It's past me!" "Huh!" says Alex. "They ain't no trick to it at all--why say, even _you_ could of done it!" CHAPTER VI THE LITTLE THINGS DON'T COUNT