She bought the blue suit and the crêpe de Chine blouse recommended by Miss Beatrice Joline. She was still sorry for Mr. Schwirtz; she thought of him now and then, and wondered where he had gone. But that did not prevent her enjoying the mirror's reflection of the new blouse. § 4 While he was dictating to Una, Mr. Truax monologized: "I don't see why we can't sell that Boutell family a lot. We wouldn't make any profit out of it, now, anyway--that's nearly eaten up by the overhead we've wasted on them. But I hate to give them up, and your friend Mr. Fein says that we aren't scientific salesmen if we give up the office problems that everybody takes a whack at and seems to fail on." More and more Mr. Truax had been recognizing Una as an intelligence, and often he teased her regarding her admiration for Mr. Fein's efficiency. Now he seemed almost to be looking to her for advice as he plaintively rambled on: "Every salesman on the staff has tried to sell this asinine Boutell family and failed. We've got the lots--give 'em anything from a fifteen-thousand-dollar-restriction, water-front, high-class development to an odd lot behind an Italian truck-farm. They've been considering a lot at Villa Estates for a month, now, and they aren't--" "Let me try them." "Let you try them?" "Try to sell them." "Of course, if you want to--in your own time outside. This is a matter that the selling department ought to have disposed of. But if you want to try--" "I will. I'll try them on a Saturday afternoon--next Saturday." "But what do you know about Villa Estates?" "I walked all over it, just last Sunday. Talked to the resident salesman for an hour." "That's good. I wish all our salesmen would do something like that." All week Una planned to attack the redoubtable Boutells. She telephoned (sounding as well-bred and clever as she could) and made an appointment for Saturday afternoon. The Boutells were going to a matinée, Mrs. Boutell's grating voice informed her, but they would be pleased t' see Mrs. Schwirtz after the show. All week Una asked advice of "Chas.," the sales-manager, who, between extensive exhortations to keep away from selling--"because it's the hardest part of the game, and, believe me, it gets the least gratitude"--gave her instructions in the tactics of "presenting a proposition to a client," "convincing a prospect of the salesman's expert knowledge of values," "clinching the deal," "talking points," and "desirability of location." Wednesday evening Una went out to Villa Estates to look it over again, and she conducted a long, imaginary conversation with the Boutells regarding the nearness of the best school in Nassau County. But on Saturday morning she felt ill. At the office she wailed on the shoulder of a friendly stenographer that she would never be able to follow up this, her first chance to advance.