"No."

"I hope you are not very tired, for the Parsonage Committee brought the
new carpet this afternoon, and I have started to put it down. I
thought we would finish it this evening. It won't be any work at all
for you, for I--I--bought you one of these to-day to put it down
with,"--pushing an illustrated circular across the table toward me.


ANY CHILD CAN USE IT

THE PERFECT AUTOMATIC CARPET-LAYER

No more carpet-laying bills. Do your own laying. No wrinkles. No
crowded corners. No sore knees. No pounded fingers. No broken backs.
Stand up and lay your carpet with the Perfect Automatic. Easy as
sweeping. Smooth as putting paper on the wall. You hold the handle,
and the Perfect Automatic does the rest. Patent Applied For. Price--


--but it was not the price! It was the tool--a weird hybrid tool, part
gun, part rake, part catapult, part curry-comb, fit apparently for
almost any purpose, from the business of blunderbuss to the office of
an apple-picker. Its handle, which any child could hold, was somewhat
shorter and thicker than a hoe-handle, and had a slotted tin barrel, a
sort of intestine, on its ventral side along its entire length. Down
this intestine, their points sticking through the slot, moved the tacks
in single file to a spring-hammer close to the floor. This hammer was
operated by a lever or tongue at the head of the handle, the connection
between the hammer at the distal end and the lever at the proximal end