“Do all of your customers make the same offer to you?” I asked. “No,” he answered. “Then why were you so sure that I was going to make it?” “It is what your type of sport would do. You are a first-class loser and that makes you a first-class business man. I am much obliged to you, but I can’t do it.” “Now tell me why you do not wish to make more than your commission?” “It isn’t that exactly,” he said. “I am not working just for the commission.” “What are you working for then?” “For the commission and the record,” he answered. “What record?” “Mine.” “What are you driving at?” “Do you work for money alone?” he asked me. “Yes,” I said. “No.” And he shook his head. “No, you don’t. You wouldn’t get enough fun out of it. You certainly do not work merely to add a few more dollars to your bank account and you are not in Wall Street because you like easy money. You get your fun some other way. Well, same here.” I did not argue but asked him, “And how do you get your fun?” “Well,” he confessed, “we’ve all got a weak spot.” “And what’s yours?” “Vanity,” he said. “Well,” I told him, “you’ve succeeded in getting me to sign on. Now I want to sign off, and I am paying you two hundred dollars for ten minutes’ work. Isn’t that enough for your pride?” “No,” he answered. “You see, all the rest of the bunch have been working Wall Street for months and failed to make expenses. They said it was the fault of the goods and the territory. So the office sent for me to prove that the fault was with their salesmanship and not with the books or the place. They were working on a 25 per cent commission. I was in Cleveland, where I sold eighty-two sets in two weeks. I am here to sell a certain number of sets not only to people who did not buy from the other agents but to people they couldn’t even get to see. That’s why they give me 33⅓ per cent.” “I can’t quite figure out how you sold me that set.” “Why,” he said consolingly, “I sold J. P. Morgan a set.” “No, you didn’t,” I said. He wasn’t angry. He simply said, “Honest, I did.” “A set of Walter Scott to J. P. Morgan, who not only has some fine editions but probably the original manuscripts of some of the novels as well?” “Well, here’s his John Hancock.” And he promptly flashed on me a contract signed by J. P. Morgan himself. It might not have been Mr. Morgan’s signature, but it did not occur to me to doubt it at the time. Didn’t he have mine in his pocket? All I felt was curiosity. So I asked him, “How did you get past the librarian?” “I didn’t see any librarian. I saw the Old Man himself. In the office.” “That’s too much!” I said. Everybody knew that it was much harder to get into Mr. Morgan’s private office empty handed than into the White House with a parcel that ticked like an alarm clock. But he declared, “I did.” “But how did you get into his office?” “How did I get into yours?” he retorted. “I don’t know. You tell me,” I said.