“Pretty neat, ain’t it?” he declared, watching Enoch as he read on. “Gets at the customer first crack out of the box with a hearty handshake, inspires confidence at low rates. That there line,” he explained, pointing with a long finger to: “Don’t damn your shirts if you find they don’t fit when they come back from the wash. Damn the laundry. We guarantee no profanity in our work.” “That line’s mine, Crane.”
“I might have guessed so,” said Enoch, glancing up at the promoter over the fine gold rims of his spectacles. “You seem to have been born, Mr. Ford, with a—er—what—shall I say?—an inborn talent—to—er—catch the public.”
“Been so since I was a boy,” declared Ford with enthusiasm. “Always seemed to come natural to me. Why, Crane, I warn’t but just turned sixteen when I was out for myself on the road makin’ sometimes as high as a hundred and fifty dollars a week sellin’ ‘The Elixir of Youth.’ Take it along up Lake Champlain and down the Vermont side during fair-time; why, them ’way-backs would crowd up and slap out a dollar for a bottle quick as a trout takes a grasshopper.”
“Harmless, I hope?” remarked Enoch.
“Harmless!” Ford grinned and scratched his head. “Well, Crane, I wasn’t takin’ any chances. A little Epsom salts and brook water, tinctured up with port wine never hurt ’em any, I guess. Then, of course, they had a dollar’s worth of excitement in waitin’ to get young. Used to throw in a mirror and a pocket-comb with every three-bottle sale.”
“A hundred and fifty dollars a week! Ah, you don’t tell me!” exclaimed Enoch slowly, squaring about in the rocker and scrutinizing Ford sternly.
“That’s what it amounted to, my friend—clean velvet profit—from Monday to Saturday night. Not so bad for a youngster of sixteen, was it? I used to do a lot of talkin’ then. I had to.”
“Naturally you needed a good rest Sundays,” intervened Enoch coldly.
“Oh! Sundays, of course I had to close down the show. But I was pretty light-fingered on the cornet in those days, and when I struck a fresh town Sundays I used to lead the church choir. Nothing like a cornet to fill a meetin’-house. That always netted me a five-dollar note. I tell daughter she must have somehow inherited her musical talent from me.”
“Inherited?” remarked Enoch dryly.