I made a clean breast of it
Perhaps he was flattered by my picture of him as an inaccessible magnate; perhaps he simply appreciated the joke of the thing and the energy and tenacity I had brought to it, but he let me narrate the adventure in detail.
I told him the bare truth, and I did so with conscious simple-heartedness, straining every nerve to make a favorable impression
As he listened he repeatedly broke into laughter, and when I had finished he said to his son: "Sounds like a detective story, doesn't it?"
But his demeanor was still enigmatic, and I anxiously wondered whether I impressed him as an energetic business man or merely as an adventurer, a crank, or even a crook
"All I ask for is an opportunity to show you my samples, Mr.
Huntington," I said.
"Well," he answered, deliberately, "there can be no harm in that." And after a pause, "You've bagged your game so far as that's concerned."
And he merrily made me an appointment for the next morning
About a month later I came across Loeb on Broadway, New York
"By the way," he said, in the course of our brief talk, with a twinkle in his eve, "did you sell anything to Huntington?" "Huntington? St. Louis? Why, he really is a hard man to reach," I answered, glumly.