The old wowser gasped like a gaffed sturgeon at this impertinent news and attempted to swing back more or less crushingly, but the lather got in his mixer, and so all he could do was to lie there and let Ed go ahead and throw the short-horn. Ed proceeded to tell him exactly how many farms there were in the County, State and Nation, the acreage under cultivation, the average number of plows per farm, and so on. And then Ed wheeled suddenly about, and pointing his finger accusingly at his be-lathered and outstretched victim, exclaimed: “How many of these four thousand three hundred and thirty-two plows did YOU sell in Crooked Creek County last year!” The old man did not say so, but he as much as admitted that he was a dub at the facts of his own business, and later on when he was putting on his overcoat, and Jake the star wielder of the rasp was helping to pull his undercoat down where it didn’t belong, he turned around pseudo-casually to Ed and told him to drop around to the factory some afternoon and have a chat. * * * * * Now it so happened that the Young Man who had charge of the Sales and Advertising end of the Plow Factory was a very faithful and steady Young Man. His conduct was at all times “exemplary,” to coin a word. Every morning as the Court House clock struck eight, he could be seen dismounting from his tin bicycle at exactly the same spot in front of the office door. He had never been late but one morning in his episcopalean life, and that was after a thick night at the Welfare Social when he went in too strong for the strawberry-whisp. He was one of those Young Men you can always Rely Upon. You know the kind—always the same. He did the same thing this year that he did last year: (a) and at the same time: (b) and in the same place: (c) and in the same way. The same Copy that stood in the Ads last year, stood in the Ads this year—and occasionally got tired and sat down in the valuable space. All his letters to The Trade opened and closed the same way like a door—“Replying to yours” and “Hoping to have.” He also wrote Weekly Letters to the Men on the Road and talked in the earnest, measured phrases of a requiem, about Punch and Pep and Live Wire. There was almost enough live wire in these salesmanic scintillations to singe the hair off an apple. After you got past the waxed opener beginning with the inevitable “Well Boys,” the stuff went like a warm home-brew. There was another thing about this Young Man worthy of eulogy. He was one of those Model Employees who always pitch the ball so the Boss can hit it. Whenever the Old Man would ask him a question he would burst a blood-vessel straining to answer it so that it would stack four-square with what the O. M. thought about the matter.