"My advance agent friend, who had sat beside me--Henry had fallen in
with us in our double seat--said to Henry, 'Now, that's a good line of
argument. Why don't you use that sometime?' A twinkle came into my
theatrical friend's eye when Henry did, in fact, ask my permission to
use this line of talk. I told Henry, 'Why, sure, go on and use that
argument anywhere you want to. I shall not use it again because in
every town that I shall strike, from this time on, I have an old
established customer. I have no use for that argument. Just go and use
it.'

"'You'd better write that down with a pencil, Henry,' said the advance
agent--Stanley was his name.

"'No, dere's no use ov writing dot down,' said Henry. 'Dot archurnent
vas so clear dot I haf it in my headt!'

"But, sure enough, Henry took out his lead pencil and jotted down the
points in the back of his order book. In the next town we struck, one
of the merchants was a gruff old Tartar. He was the first man that
Henry lit onto.

"Now, an old merchant can size up a traveling man very soon after he
enters the door. The shoeman will go over to where the shoes are kept;
the hat man will turn his face toward the hat case; the furnishing
goods man will size up the display of neckwear; in fact, a merchant
once told me that he could even tell the difference between a clothing
man and a pants man. A clothing man will walk up to a table and run
his hands over the coats while a pants man will always finger the
trousers to a suit.