It used to amuse me to come in contact with the high-salaried drummers, upon whose personal sales their houses solely depended for success, and see them spend a large share of their valuable time in "getting acquainted" with some prominent merchant prior to inviting him to the hotel to see their samples, which only for the disgrace of carrying their cases from store to store they would have had with them. It was always an easy matter for me to frustrate this class of salesmen in their schemes of getting acquainted, as I always had my sample case ready to spring open at the very first opportunity; and as I usually managed to get the floor, and almost invariably did all the talking, the "box," as a rule, was opened up to the merchant on short notice; and although I considered a sale half made when this was accomplished, I never quit talking or quit pushing sales, and always hurried my customer through as fast as possible, and as soon as finished bade him good-bye and left his store. Many a good sale I made in this way while my modest, sleek, forty-dollar-a-month friend stood by and wondered how long I had been acquainted with the proprietor. We traveled through Michigan, visiting the same towns we had sold auction goods in the year before; and wherever I traveled, the moment I would step off the cars I would hear such remarks as these from men and boys: "There's the auction man. We'll have a circus to-night; he can talk a man to death in five minutes. Wonder what he's got in that box." In about thirty days from the day I made my first sale of jewelry I arrived at Cheboygan, Michigan; and upon taking an inventory of stock and cash, found I had cleared just six hundred and twenty-five dollars over and above all our expenses. On calling for my mail at this place I received a letter from the proprietor of the wholesale house I had been dealing with, requesting me to come to Chicago at once, as they had a very important proposition to make to me. When I returned to the hotel I met my wife in the hall and said: "Flo., I guess _G. & S._ want to take me in partnership with them; at any rate they have written me to come to Chicago, and I think we'd better start at once." We boarded a small steamer for Traverse City, where we took the steamer "City of Traverse," and after about forty-eight hours' ride arrived in Chicago, and I immediately called on the firm with a feeling of almost absolute assurance that thirty minutes later would find me a member of the concern. After shaking hands and passing the time of day, one of the firm called me into his private office and informed me that they had concluded to put me on the road at a stipulated salary. "But I never work on a salary. It's against my principles and ideas of business." "Yet you would certainly prefer a sure thing, wouldn't you, Johnston?"