“Yes,” said Healey, “Fuller lives on both continents, and brings the steel over in his grip. We have our examples at the hotel and shall be glad to have you come up there. Fuller don't care whether he sells or not; he is rich and traveling only to keep down his flesh.”
Mr. Clark made an engagement with them and they went away. As they passed out he said: “There goes one of the most genial-hearted men on the road. I have known Charley Healey for about twenty years. He came out here representing Hilger & Son, and built up a good trade for that firm. Hilger could not have done it in a thousand years. Then that firm and Wiebusch consolidated, and Healey looked after their Western business. I never met a buyer who was not his friend, and I imagine most of them are, like myself, heavily in his debt for courtesies extended to us, not by way of business, but as if he were under obligations to us. I say to you that a good many houses never suspect the debt they are under to their traveling men, but look upon themselves as the great magnet that draws trade, when nine out of ten dealers care nothing whatever about the principals and buy entirely out of regard for the salesman.”
I had heard many men speak in the same terms of Healey before, and I hoped I should meet him at dinner.
As I bade good-by to Mr. Clark and thanked him for the order given me, he said: “Somehow you do not seem like a stranger.”
I thanked him for that compliment most sincerely.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Sunday to the commercial traveler, if to no others, is preeminently a day of rest. If there are stores open during week days he feels that he ought to be at work, and if he gives himself an extra half-hour at noon or evening his conscience pricks him. But upon the Sabbath there is nothing to be done by way of business, unless in getting from one town to another, and it is his rest day.
I slept so late (I admit that I am always lazy whenever I dare be) that I fancied I would have the dining-room to myself, but I had plenty of company. The hotel where I was had an excellent reputation on the road and was a favorite place at which to pass Sunday. I was fortunate enough to meet here a hardware man from my own city whom I knew well, and who had traveled long enough to know almost everybody.