"No," said the old gentleman, "thank you; I never buy books—I have so many. No trouble at all; I am very pleased to have seen it. Allow me!"
He bowed her out with genial ceremony, and seemed to be under the impression that he had conferred a favour.
The next gentleman that she wanted to see was dead. Number 3 had gone on a trial-trip; and two other gentlemen were out of town. Number 6, on reference to her paper, proved to be a "Mr. Crespigny." His outer office much resembled that of Mr. Hatch, and more supercilious young men were busy behind a counter.
She waited while her name was taken in to him. On Mr. Collins's theory, this, the sixth venture, ought to result in half a guinea to her. She had by now arranged a little overture, and was ready to introduce herself in coherent phrases. Instead of her being admitted to the inner room, however, Mr. Crespigny came out, in the wake of his clerk, and it devolved upon her to explain her business publicly. He was a tall man with a pointed beard, and he advanced towards her in interrogative silence, flicking a cigarette. Her heart was thudding.
"Good-morning," she said; "Messrs. Pattenden, the publishers, have asked me to wait upon you with a specimen of a new work that——"
Mr. Crespigny deliberately turned his back, and walked to the threshold of the private office without a word. Regaining it, he spoke to the hapless clerk.
"Pshaw!" he exclaimed, "don't you know a book-agent yet when you see one?"
He slammed the door behind him, and, with a sensation akin to having been slapped in the face, she hurried away. Her cheeks were hot; no retort occurred to her even when she stood on the pavement. She was a book-agent, a pest whose intrusion was always liable to be ridiculed or resented according to the bent of the person importuned. Oh, how hateful it was to be poor—"poor" in the fullest meaning of the term; to be compelled to cringe to cads, and swallow insults, and call it "wisdom" that one showed no spirit! An hour passed before she could nerve herself to make another attempt; Mr. Crespigny had taken all the pluck out of her. And when she repaired to Pattenden's her report was a chronicle of failures.
The exact answers obtained she had in many cases forgotten, and Mr. Collins advised her to jot down brief memoranda of the interviews in future, that he might be able to point out to her where her line of conduct had been at fault.
"Now, that set speech of yours was a mistake," he said. "What you want to do at the start is to get the man's attention—to surprise him into listening. Perhaps he has had half a dozen travellers bothering him already, all trying for an order for something or another, and all beginning the same way. Go in brightly. Don't let him know your business till you've got the specimen open under his nose. Cry, 'Well, Mr. So-and-So, here it is, out at last!' Say anything that comes into your head, but startle him at the beginning. He may think you're mad, but he'll listen from astonishment, and when you've woke him up you can show him that you're not."