“Did anything like that ever happen with you?”
“No, not with me, but it has happened. I read of a man going into a gun store, buying a revolver, asking the clerk to load it (doing it all calmly), and then placing it at his temple and falling down dead. I believe I would go crazy if such a thing were to happen in my store, and I always worry more or less for fear it may. It's a mean business at the best; I wish there were no revolvers made. What do you get for this?”
“Two eighty-five.”
“Well, send us six.”
I sold him a fair bill, and then spent the afternoon trying to sell two other large retailers, but without success. One of the men was snappish, the other good-natured but full of goods. I did want, very badly, to get a little order out of them, but when I went to supper I had nothing from them. After supper I went down to the cross-grained man's store determined to get so well acquainted with him that I could meet him again under different auspices.
He looked at me as if he expected to be pestered in some new spot, but I put him at rest by saying I had a little time to lounge and thought I could do it there. At this he dropped some of his frowns and began to be sociable. We talked until I was sure it was long after his shutting-up time, so I bade him good night, saying I was going off in the night.
“Don't you ever drink a glass of beer or wine?” he asked.
“Try me!”
“All right; let us lock up and go down the street a block.”