And now J.W. was in the last stage of the Experiment Walter Drury had contrived to shape its larger conditions, with the help of many friendly but unsuspecting conspirators. This tour in the interest of better tools was due mainly to his initiative. But he could do nothing more. The event was now out of his hands. The relaxed tension made him realize that his nerves were shaky, and he had a sense of great depression. But before he went to bed he pulled himself together long enough to write to five missionaries, including Joe Carbrook, whose fields were on or near the route J.W. would travel. He had told J.W. that he would let these men know of his coming, but he did more. To each one he said a word of appeal. "Don't argue much with this boy of mine; I want him to see it without too many second-hand opinions. Explain all you please, and let him get as near as he can to the people you are dealing with. If, as I hope, he gets a glimpse of the work's inner meaning, I shall be satisfied." * * * * * The first day which J.W. spent in Shanghai was a big day for him. Even amid the strangeness of the scene he felt almost at home. The people who had the Cummings agency had received their instructions, and were prepared to help him every way. He could begin an up-country trip at once if he wished. Then he met the first of the men to whom Pastor Drury had written, Mark Rutledge, and at once he saw that this well-groomed, alert young missionary, who used modern speech in deliberate but direct fashion, would be of immense service to him. Rutledge received J.W.'s gospel of tools with almost boyish enthusiasm. "I've always said," he exclaimed, "that if the other business men of America had as much sense as the tobacco folks they would hasten the Christianizing of China by many a year. Not that tobacco is helping; far from it. But it's the idea of fitting their product to this particular market. And your house has evidently caught that idea. You must have a real sales manager in Saint Louis! Of course I'll help you all I can." Some of the help which Mark Rutledge gave him was of a sort that J.W. could not rightly estimate at the time, but he knew it was good. As long as he stayed in Shanghai, and as often he came back to the city as a base, he and Rutledge were pretty frequently together. The missionary kept his own counsel as to the Drury letter, merely dropping a hint now and then, or a suggestion which fitted both the Cummings agency's program and the pastor's desire.