"Its ease of style, its rapidity, its interest from page to page, are admirable; and it shows that inimitable power—the storyteller's gift of verisimilitude. Its sureness and clearness are excellent, and its portraiture clear and pleasing."—The Reader.
"It is an extremely well told story, made up of interesting situations and the doings of life-like people, and you will find it very easy to follow the fortunes of the different characters through its varied scenes."—Boston Herald.
Transcriber's Note: The vacuum cleaner advertisement in Chapter XXXVII has been moved to a more appropriate location in the text, and some trademark notation in the advertisements which could not be accurately reproduced in this electronic format has been removed. In addition, the following typographical errors, which were present in the original printed edition, have been corrected for this electronic edition.
A missing quotation mark has been added after "from the coil" in the List of Illustrations.
In Chapter VI, "$22,000,00" was changed to "$22,000.00".
In Chapter VII, "Myrick" was changed to "Myricks" in two places.
In Chapter IX, "anybody else for them,." was changed to "anybody else for them."
In Chapter XIV, "Buy why?" was changed to "But why?"
In Chapter XI, a comma was changed to a period after "told me about Stigler".