“Yours successfully,
“E. P. Redmond,
“Managing Salesman of The United Family
Laundry Association, Limited.”
He thrust the letter back in his pocket and waited for its effect, beating a tattoo on the arm of the sofa, and though Miss Ann did not reply, the nervous way she dropped her stitches assured him he had made an impression.
“Anybody, my friend, with a little ready money, can double it,” he resumed persuasively. “Just as sure as two and two makes four. Take Mrs. Miggs, for instance. Six months ago she was skimpin’ along as usual—always ailin’, too—worry done that, as I told her, worry; not knowin’ how she was goin’ to end one month and begin another. Lookin’ sallower’n a peck of mustard—no appetite—worry—and what for? Kept what little money she had in her bank, afraid to invest a dollar of it in anything. Let it lay there in cold storage without givin’ her a cent of interest. Spendin’ little by little her capital without a dollar of it free to make another. ’Twa’n’t right, and I told her so plainly. It’s all she had, she told me. It’ll be all you’ll ever get, I told her, if you keep on leaving it in jail. Any dollar, my dear friend, that ain’t worth more than a dollar, that can’t make a cent for itself, is a pretty shiftless greenback, and ought to be ashamed to look its owner in the face. Give every dollar a show. That’s common sense, ain’t it?”
He shot out a frayed cuff and slapped his knee soundly.
“I ain’t the kind to believe in speculatin’, ’specially for women. They wa’n’t never made to handle the heavy risks that men are. They ain’t capable of shoulderin’ the enormous responsibilities that we have to. How many women have come to me, beggin’ me to invest their money in speculations that I’ve refused. Funny, ain’t it, how some women like to gamble? That’s all speculatin’ is—gamblin’. Gamblin’s agin my principles, friend, and always was. There ain’t no righteousness in gamblin’. It’s an ungodly sin, worse vice’n the liquor habit. Our gains, says the Bible, is to be measured by the sweat of our brows. Honest business means hard toil and sound judgment. Why, I’ve seen times when if it hadn’t been for my sound judgment—business acumen, they call it—I’d been a ruined man. Sellin’ honest goods ain’t got nothin’ to do with gamblin’. Sellin’ somethin’ that folks need—honestly made and honestly sold; that folks who have paid for it and used it swear by. An article that enters the home circle as a helpin’ hand; that makes the home happier, and keeps the doctor from the door. No more backaches for mother; a child can turn the handle of the Gem. The accelerator tends to that. Easy as a fish-reel, friction down to the minimum. Any wonder that it sells? As our Southern agent wrote us the other day: ‘It wrings out the dollars, as easy as it does a heavy day’s wash.’”
He laughed softly.
“Yes; it’s given the wringer trade a tough blow—patents all covered. There ain’t an inch of it they kin imitate. When men like Hiram Sudwell, president of the National Mangle Company, come sniffin’ round to buy,” he chuckled. “‘Sudwell,’ I says to him, ‘you ain’t got money enough if you was to pile it as high as the ceilin’ to buy the Gem.’ He sorter laughed. He knowed there wa’n’t no use.
“‘Couldn’t you let me in a little on the ground floor?’ says he. ‘How about lettin’ me have ten thousand shares of your preferred? If it’s a go here’s my check for it,’ says he. I let him talk. I see he was lookin’ kind er down in the mouth. Bimeby he begun to coax an’ whine. ‘See here,’ says he, ‘there ain’t no use ’n our hemmin’ and hawin’ round the bush. I’m plain-spoken. The Gem’s a gold mine, and you know it. Tell you what I’ll do,’ says he; ‘if you’ll let me have ten thousand spot cash, I’ll throw in five hundred of the Mangle’s preferred just to show there’s no hard feelin’.’ ‘Sudwell,’ says I, ‘we ain’t sellin’ stock to rival companies. First thing you know you’d want more. Next thing we’d know you’d have us out in the cold....’”
Miss Ann had risen. She laid her knitting with a trembling hand in her work-basket, went over to the window and stood there gazing out, struggling with herself over a decision so stupendous to that conservative little woman, that every quivering nerve in her was strung to its utmost. As she stood by the window she seemed to be praying.
Suddenly she turned to him, her hands clasped behind her, her eyes downcast, one small foot slightly advanced toward a step that even then made her tremble, her mind filled with doubt, that forerunner of hasty decision.