The day bid fair to be blazing hot, and the chances were that before getting through I would be hotter. I went along, trying to muster up courage, and laughing at myself for a cowardice which I had never felt since breaking the ice with calling cards. What troubled me was the fact that my inexperienced hand would most likely be employed, if at all, on the corns and bunions of the sweeter sex, and I felt shy of presenting myself as a spectacle for their roguish or discriminating eyes. Door after door I passed, and at each one my courage failed me and I went on with a muttered “not yet.” “This will never do,” I said to myself at length. “At the fifth house from this I stop and begin work. Rich or poor, young or old, high or low, no matter what state or condition of men, women or children I may meet with, I intend to extract their corns, eradicate their bunions, and obtain the full market price for my services.” The fifth house was a neat cottage and the name of Higbie was on the door. I rang the bell and a young lady appeared at the threshold. Good heavens! If it had been her grandmother the case would have been bad enough, but I confess the sight of this beautiful young lady, with the big blue eyes and the lovely golden hair, frizzled all over her head in some bewildering manner, broke my nerve at the very outset. I felt an immediate desire to ask for a glass of water, but remembered that I had exhausted that racket in my Chicago experience, and came to business as well as I could. The longer I thought of those wide blue eyes which were on me, the more confused and excited I became, and the less inclined I felt to break the ice, though I knew it had to be done in some way. When, at length, in a very sweet voice, she asked what I wanted, I blurted out: “Do you want to buy any corns today? Ah—oh, no—I don’t mean that. I wanted to ask if you had any corns in here. That is—are you—no—so to speak—I am a corn doctor, selling corns, bunions and ingrowing toe nails. I have only a few more left of the same sort, and I am disposing of them ridiculously cheap.” And right then I brought up with a short turn. I had started in on the wrong string, and for the life of me could not stop until I had made a mess of it. When I realized what I had done I stammered a little and was speechless. Somehow, that young lady affected me as no young woman ever did, before or since. She seemed to notice my predicament, for she said, very sweetly: “Oh, you are a corn doctor, are you?”