"Huh," interjected Larsen, "that sounds nice, 'extra profit.' Suppose you don't sell the goods! There you are flat on your back, with a lot of expensive silverware and things on your chest!" We laughed at Larsen. When order was restored, Mr. Field said: "With a little maneuvering it is possible to get such goods on consignment. We make a point, in all my stores, of offering the best goods we have to the customer. It's easier to come down than to go up, don't you know. I know a store in a small town, that never used to sell pocket-knives for more than fifty cents. They told me they didn't think it possible to sell anything more expensive, there, forgetting that there was a lot of money there. A salesman one day got them to put in a line of pocket-knives selling, retail, up to $2.00 each. They were afraid of them, in spite of the salesman's confidence that they could sell them, if they showed them so the salesman finally agreed to send them a lot on consignment. That was--let me see--a couple of years ago. When I was in the town a few days ago, I was talking with the owner of that store and he told me that now they very seldom sell anything less than 50 cents, and that their average price for pocket-knives is a dollar to a dollar and a quarter. He said they sell a lot of them up as high as $3.50 each, and they sell more knives now than ever they did when they carried only cheap ones." A buzz went around the store from my little force as this fact sunk home. Then Mr. Field sat down, and we broke into hearty applause. Larsen got up, before we closed, and suggested a vote of thanks to Mr. Field for his most instructive talk, which suggestion was followed out; and the meeting then adjourned. I felt that it was a mighty good thing to have an outsider come in and talk like that, and I decided to try to get some people to do it. Barlow was a mighty clever man, but I thought some of these little stunts I was pulling off were better than anything he could think of. CHAPTER XXI A POOR SALESMAN The next day I called on a number of people in the town that I knew and some that I didn't know, with the Cincinnati pencil sharpener. I had delivered the eighteen, that Downs sold, when they arrived, and since then I had sold only one other. I had begun to wonder whether I had done right in buying that eighteen extra, for the Cincinnati man evidently had sold pretty well all the people in town who wanted pencil sharpeners--or so it seemed to me. I plugged hard all day,--and sold one sharpener! I started off soon after nine o'clock and made my first call on Jerry Mills, who was a certified public accountant. We knew each other very well, so I got right down to business when I went into his office, and said: "Jerry, I want to sell you a pencil sharpener. It's a dandy, and I know you'll like it," and then I brought out the Cincinnati.