It was not Mulcahy’s habit to take people into his confidence. But to-night, as he lolled in Archer’s comfortable easy-chair, flattered by the attentions and admiration of this boy of superior strain, he relaxed his caution and gave a glimpse of his real self.
“Do you know what I do summers?” he asked.
“Work, don’t you?”
“At what?”
Sam shook his head. “You’ve never told me.”
“I sell books. I can go into a factory—when they’ll let me in—and sell books right through from floor to floor, to men and women both. I’ve sold books bound in morocco for six dollars to women who didn’t earn that a week. I used to be so successful that when I came to deliver the books, they’d pretend I’d used unfair means to get their signatures. Yet it was all done by holding on and not taking offence, and flattering and agreeing with people.”
“I don’t think much of getting poor women to pay a week’s wages for a book when they need every cent they can earn for food and clothes,” said Sam, bluntly.
“Oh, perhaps they earned more than six dollars. It don’t matter. They’re bound to throw away about so much anyway.”
“How old are you?” asked Sam.
“I’ll be twenty-one next July.”