‘With this conviction, and with such disguise as I thought advisable, I called at various houses all in one row in the Willesden neighbourhood. I was accompanied by a covered handcart, propelled by a boy hired for the purpose. Inside the handcart were the gifts that I had prepared for the occupants of the houses. Taking from the handcart a fruit-cake in a paper bag, I rang at the first house and requested the dirty little girl who opened it to fetch her dear mamma. Mamma appeared, wiping her hands on her apron, and looking displeased with life in general and me in particular. ‘“Good-morning, lady,” I said. “I am instructed by my employers to ask you if you will do them the favour of accepting as a present this fruit-cake of their manufacture. They are shortly opening a branch in this neighbourhood and are taking this method of making ladies acquainted with the quality of their goods. It is, in fact, an advertisement.” After assuring herself again that there was nothing to pay, and that the consumption of the cake would not bind her to deal with my firm—Messrs Butterstone and Co.—in future, she consented to accept the cake, and even to say that it seemed a straight way of doing business. She inquired where the new shop would be, which I told her, and what the price of a similar cake would be if she ever wanted to buy one. I put it at half what I had paid for it, and she said it was a pleasant morning. Never for one moment did she doubt that I was what I had represented myself to be. [Illustration: A smiling gentleman, smartly dressed in a white summer suit with a hat and holding a loaf-sized package wrapped in paper, talks to a taciturn housewife as she wipes her hands on her apron. A young girl stands nearby and watches them both. Caption: ‘“Good-morning, lady,” I said. “I am instructed by my employers.”’] ‘At the next house with equal success I presented half a pound of butter as a sample of the products of the Farm Creameries Company, and a similar story. The third house got a tablet of scented soap from an enterprising chemist who was just starting in business in the neighbourhood. At the next three houses I distributed as free advertising samples a pound of sausages, a box of cigarettes, and a small bottle of whisky. It took longer than I had expected, because the ladies had such a lot of questions to ask about the new shops that were to be opened, but I finished six minutes under the hour. Of course, I could have carried all the goods round in a basket, but the handcart looked more like a house-to-house distribution on a large scale.’