Mr. R.—“I should think you were taking big chances.”
Agent.—“That is the very reason we interview reliable parties only. Formerly, when one bought an encyclopedia, paying a fancy price for it, he would have to give a mortgage on house, business, wife, children and almost everything he possessed. He’d have to sign promissory notes with a judgment clause, and you know what that means. He would have to pay ten per cent. interest, pay for expressage, and receive only one volume at a time. Under this proposition you don’t sign notes, you pay no interest, no expressage, make no advance payments, give no security, and get the complete set of twelve volumes at one time.”
Mr. R.—“How do I know that you are telling the truth?”
Agent.—“I am surprised at that question. Don’t the thing look fair, right on the face of it? I offer to ship you a complete set, free of charge, and then give you one whole year in which to pay for them. Just think, my dear sir, could I afford to make misrepresentations on these conditions? You are a business man, and so am I. Do you think I’d sell you one thing and ship you another?”
Mr. R.—“And you say it is a very late edition?”
Agent.—“Yes, sir, modernized and right up to date.”
“Mr. R.—“Any maps?”
Agent.—“Certainly, sir. One hundred and nineteen maps, 13,000 illustrations, 17,000 pages, 57,000 separate and distinct subjects, 16,000,000 words, and an atlas department which represents every country in the known world. This department, by the way, is more extensive than any single atlas. It takes you into every spot on the face of the earth, from the diamond fields of Africa to the orange groves of Florida. It also gives a biographical sketch of all the notables of the various nations, something no ordinary atlas does. The whole encyclopedia is complete in every department. It gives the origin of every language, the history of the world’s religious and political developments, origin and growth of secret societies, manners and customs of all nations, treats broadly of architecture, mechanism, arts and science, taking you into a thousand channels heretofore unheard of. The illustrations are the great drawing card. In the department of mechanics, for instance, if you read the description of an article and do not understand it, you could turn to the illustration and see it, plain as daylight. Besides all these features it has an extra department, giving all the speeches made by our leading politicians during the late campaign.”
Mr. R. (jokingly).—“But I can’t read.”
Agent.—“You don’t have to, Mr. Rice. This is the parrot edition. Just open one of the volumes and it speaks for itself.”