Hutchinson was there, leaning back in a chair, his feet crossed on the desk. He did not move when she came in, save to lift his eyes from the sporting page and knock the ashes from his cigar. He accepted her now as an equal in his own game, and there was respect in his voice. "Well, how's it coming?"
"I'm going to get out of the fields," she said. She pushed back her hat with a tired gesture and dropped into a chair.
"The hell you say! What's wrong?" Hutchinson set up, dropping the paper, and leaned forward on the desk. His interest was almost alarmed. She was making him money.
"Territory's gone bum. K. T. O. 25 will close down in another two weeks. The Limited's going to stop drilling. I'm going somewhere else."
"What! Who told you?"
"Nobody. I just doped it out."
He was relieved. He cajoled her. She was tired, he said. She was working in a streak of bad luck. Every salesman struck it sometime. Look at him; he hadn't made a sale in four weeks, and he hadn't lost his nerve. Cheer up!
She had been considering a plan, and she had chosen the moment to present it to him. The obliqueness of real-estate methods had astounded her. She had always supposed that men thought and acted in straight lines, logical lines. That, she had thought, gave them their superiority over irrational womankind. But the waste and blindness of business as she had seen it had altered her opinion of them. Her plan was logical, but she did not count upon its logic to impress Hutchinson. She reckoned on the emotional effect that would be produced by the truth of her prophecy. Letting that prophecy stand, she began to unfold her plan.
The big point in making a land sale was getting hold of a good prospect. That should not be done by personal canvassing. It was too wasteful of time and energy. It should be done by advertising. Now Clark & Hayward's advertising was all "Whoop'er up! Come on!" stuff. It made a bid for suckers. Hutchinson smiled, but she went on.
Men who would fall for that advertising were not of the class that had bank accounts. Hutchinson had lost a lot of money trying to sell the type of men who answered those advertisements. She mentioned incidents, and Hutchinson's smile faded.