“It wouldn't harm that feller,” said Wilkins. “He's a red hot one at book-agenting, he is, an' he'd find out some way to git round it. I hear lot of book agents that come round this way tell of him. He's got a record of sellin' more copies of that encyclopedia book of his than any one man ever sold of any one book, an' he's a sort of hero of the book-agenting business. It makes me proud to call to remembrance that him an' me was kids together down at Franklin, years ago. Him an' me took to the book-agentin' biz the same day, we did. I needed cash, like I always do, and he had literatoor in the family. So we went an' did it. We did it to Gallops Junction first, and after that Eliph' sowed literatoor pretty general all over Iowa, an' next I heard of him all over the United States. Iowa is now a grand State, an as full of culture as a Swiss cheese is full of holes, an' I don't take all the credit for it; I give Eliph' his share. Hotels help to scatter the seed, but literatoor scatters more. “One day, down there at Franklin, Eliph' says to me, 'Jim, you know that book pa wrote?' That's what Eliph' remarked to me on the aforesaid day, but I wish to state his name wasn't Eliph' on that date, an' it wasn't Hewlitt, neither. It was plain Sammy; Sammy Mills. Eliph' Hewlitt was a sort of fancy name my pa had give to a horse he had that he thought was a racer, but wasn't. It was a good enough horse to enter in a race, but not good enough to win. It was the kind of race horse that kept pa poor, but hopeful. “'Why, yes, Sammy,' I says, 'I've heard tell of that grand literary effort of your dad.' “'Well,' he says--we was sittin' on the porch of his pa's house--'Pa he had a thousand of them printed.' “'Dickens he did!' I remarked, supposin' it was us to me to do some remarkin'. “'And,' says Sammy, 'he's got eight hundred an' sixty-four of them highly improvin' an' intellectooal volumes stored in the barn right now.' “'Quite a lib'ry,' I says, off-hand like. “'Numerous, but monotonous,' says Sam. 'As a lib'ry them books don't give the variety of topics they oughter. They all cling to the same subject too faithful. Eight hundred an' sixty-four volumes of the “Wage of Sin,” all bound alike, don't make what I call a rightly differentiated lib'ry. When you've read one you've read all.' “'Alas!' I says, or somthin' like that, sympathetic an' attentive. “'Likewise,' says Sam, 'they clutter up the barn. They ought to be got out to make room for more hay.' “'This was indeed true. I saw it was all good sense. Horses don't take to literatoor like they does to hay.