corners of your mouth. Go into the wholesale houses, from door to
door--until you find a job. If you are going to let a few or a hundred
turn-downs dishearten you, you'd better stay at home; _for when you
get on the road, turn-downs are what you must go up against every
day._ If you know some traveling man, or merchant, or manager, or
stock boy, maybe he can get you a "job in stock." But remember one
thing: When you get there, you must depend upon Number One. Your
recommendation is worth nothing to you from that hour on. This is the
time when the good front gets in its work.

The city is a strong current, my boy, in which there are many
whirlpools ready to suck you under; yet if you are a good swimmer you
can splash along here faster than anywhere else. A successful
traveling man once told me how he got on the road.

"I was raised in a little town in Tennessee," said he. "A traveling
man whose home was in my native town took me along with him, one day,
when he made a team trip to Bucksville, an inland country town,
fourteen miles away. That was a great trip for me--fourteen miles, and
staying over night in a hotel!--the first time I had ever done so in
my life. And for the first time I knew how it felt to have a strange
landlord call me "mister." It was on that trip that I caught the fever
for travel, and that trip put me on the road!

"When, the next morning after reaching Bucksville, my drummer friend
had finished business and packed his trunks, he said to me: 'Billie, I
guess you may go and get the team ready.' I answered him, saying, 'The
team _is_ ready and backed up, sir, for the trunks.' In three minutes
the trunks were loaded in and we were off.