The man who stood before him owned a small second-hand book store on
a side street along which John Webster was in the habit of walking as
he went back and forth to his factory. On summer evenings the man sat
in a chair before his shop and made comments on the weather and on
passing events to the people going up and down the sidewalk. Once when
John Webster was with his banker, a gray dignified looking man, he had
been somewhat embarrassed because the bookseller called out his name.
He had never done it until that day and never did it afterward. The
manufacturer had become self-conscious and had explained the matter to
the banker. “I really don’t know the man. I was never in his shop,” he
said.
In the park John Webster stood before the little man deeply
embarrassed. He told a harmless lie. “I’ve had a headache all day and
sat down here for a moment,” he said sheepishly. It was annoying that
he felt like apologizing. The little man smiled knowingly. “You ought
to take something for that. It might get a man like you into a hell of
a mess,” he said and walked away, his long shadow dancing behind him.
With a shrug of his shoulders John Webster went rapidly through a
crowded business street. He was quite sure now that he knew what he
wanted to do. He did not loiter and give way to vague thoughts, but
walked briskly along the street. “I’ll keep my mind occupied,” he
decided. “I’ll think about my business and how to develop it.” During
the week before, an advertising man from Chicago had come into his
office and had talked to him about advertising his washing machine in
the big national magazines. It would cost a good deal of money, but
the advertising man had said that he could raise his selling price
and sell many more machines. That sounded possible. It would make
the business a big one, an institution of national prominence, and
himself a big figure in the industrial world. Other men had got into a
position like that through the power of advertising. Why shouldn’t he
do something of the sort?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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