I really felt that Martin had, in his quiet way, dominated the whole of this meeting, but he had done it so neatly, and without in any way trying to overstep my authority, that I really felt that he had been a lot of help to us without making his show of knowledge obnoxious. I really believed Martin knew more about retail merchandising than all of us put together. What he had done was to suggest that it _might_ be a good idea to do such and such a thing, instead of arrogantly thrusting his knowledge on us by saying we _ought_ to do so. He was a clever man, Martin, and Barlow's son was lucky to have a fellow like him for a friend. I wished I could tie him up to my store somehow, but, of course that would be impossible in a little store like mine, for there were no prospects for a young fellow like him. . . . The day after our meeting I saw the cleverest example of selling that I had ever seen. Probably it was old, but it was surely new to me, and the man got a small order from me, too. About 10:30 in the morning, a well-dressed, jolly-looking man came into the store. I was busy serving at the time. In fact, we all were busy, but Larsen was disengaged first and so he asked what he could do for him. "How do you do?" said the stranger, smiling. "I've got a message to tell Mr. Black," and he nodded toward me. "He'll be free in a few minutes," said Larsen. "Thank you," replied the salesman. Then, noticing a display of electrical goods which we had on one of our center tables, he said, "The man who dressed that table knows something about display, doesn't he?" "I did it," said Larsen. "Oh, I beg your pardon; I thought that one of your assistants had done it." I heard this even while serving my customer and I don't think I had ever seen Larsen act so pleased. The old chap almost purred with delight. The salesman didn't say any more to Larsen, however, but turned around and inspected the electrical goods. When I was disengaged he walked over to me. "Good morning, Mr. Black; I have a message for you; but, before I deliver it, I wonder if you have such a thing as a bit of scrap zinc or tin around the place?" "Yes," I said, and told Jimmie to bring a piece. The jolly-looking man then took a pocket-knife from his pocket, opened it and cut two or three slivers off the zinc. Passing the knife over to me, he said: "Did you ever see a pocket-knife before that could do that without denting?" "No. But I never heard before of any one cutting zinc with a pocket-knife." [Illustration: "SNIPPED THREE SHORT PIECES OF WIRE FROM THE COIL"] "Of course they're not meant for that purpose; but a pocket-knife that can do that must have quality in it." "Yes, indeed." I looked at the knife curiously to see if the edge was dented at all, but it wasn't.