He slammed the door behind him, and, with a sensation akin to having been slapped in the face, she hurried away. Her cheeks were hot; no retort occurred to her even when she stood on the pavement. She _was_ a book-agent, a pest whose intrusion was always liable to be ridiculed or resented according to the bent of the person importuned. Oh, how hateful it was to be poor--"poor" in the fullest meaning of the term; to be compelled to cringe to cads, and swallow insults, and call it "wisdom" that one showed no spirit! An hour passed before she could nerve herself to make another attempt; Mr. Crespigny had taken all the pluck out of her. And when she repaired to Pattenden's her report was a chronicle of failures. The exact answers obtained she had in many cases forgotten, and Mr. Collins advised her to jot down brief memoranda of the interviews in future, that he might be able to point out to her where her line of conduct had been at fault. "Now, that set speech of yours was a mistake," he said. "What you want to do at the start is to get the man's attention--to surprise him into listening. Perhaps he has had half a dozen travellers bothering him already, all trying for an order for something or another, and all beginning the same way. Go in brightly. Don't let him know your business till you've got the specimen open under his nose. Cry, 'Well, Mr. So-and-So, here it is, out at last!' Say anything that comes into your head, but startle him at the beginning. He may think you're mad, but he'll listen from astonishment, and when you've woke him up you can show him that you're not." "It's so awful," she said dejectedly. "Awful?" exclaimed Mr. Collins. "Do you know the great Napoleon was a book-agent? Do you know that when he was a lieutenant without a red cent he travelled with a work called _L'Histoire de la Révolution_? My dear young lady, if you go to Paris you can see his canvasser's outfit under a glass case in the Louvre, and the list of orders he succeeded in collaring!" "I don't suppose he liked it." "He liked the money it brought in; and you'll like yours directly. You don't imagine I expected you to do any good right off? I should have been much surprised if you'd come in with any different account this afternoon, I can tell you! No, no, you mustn't be disheartened because you aren't lucky at the start; and as to that Victoria Street fellow who was in a bad temper, what of him? He has to make his living, and you have to make yours; remember you're just as much in your rights as the man you're talking to when you make a call anywhere." "Very good," said Mary; "if you are satisfied, _I_ am. I don't pretend my services are being clamoured for. You may be sure I want to do well with the thing. If, by putting my pride in my pocket, I can put an income there too, I'm ready to do it."