“I don't feel like doing any business just now,” said he, “come in after dinner.”
This was pleasanter than to be told not to come in at all, so I made another call on the street, but did no business. As I took my place at the dinner table a man opposite me (we two were alone) nodded, and asked if I was selling hardware, saying he had seen me come out of Mr. Bell's. I told him my business, and he gave me his card: Tibbals, of Meriden, Conn. I've seen many handsomer men than Tibbals, but I have not often met one who was better company. He had been on the road, so he said, for twenty years, selling plated ware, and I expect “Rogers Bro., 1847,” was tattooed all over him.
“Have you sold Harris?” he asked.
“No, he told me to come in after dinner.”
“What a lazy fellow he is! That man is the laziest one on my route. I took his order this morning while he lay on a lounge. I asked him if he was sick, and he said he was not, but he was tired. Great Scott! just think of a man getting tired doing nothing.”
I saw Tibbals liked to talk, so I led him on to more details about Harris.
“Some folks are lucky,” said he. “When I came out here in '65 Harris was a traveling man, but the next January he was given an interest. The house was old, rich, well known and well liked. They carried everything in stock from a bar of iron to a knitting-needle. Harris took the books and gradually got to be the buyer. He used to have some ambition, but for the ten years last past he takes the world as easy as if he was a fat old dog.”
“Do they still make money?”
“No, I guess not. They don't buy as they used to, and they are always grumbling. But other men have made lots of money here in these twenty years and didn't have one-tenth the start Harris had.”
“Does he drink?”