"Now, look here," said Mrs. Cowgill argumentatively; "it wouldn't put a person ahead any to make up all that bogus stuff, and maybe kill himself takin' the medicine and usin' the vinegar and preserved eggs. A person don't use enough of them things to make it profitable."
"You're not supposed to use them yourself; you manufacture and sell them."
"I'm thinkin' about that, too," Mrs. Cowgill said. "You say it's a book that ought to be in every home."
"Every home. There comes an opportunity in every life for making money. The secret of success is in being prepared when it comes. All the masters of finance realize this. They never would have been rich if they had not been ready. Every—"
"But suppose you did sell one to every house in McPacken; suppose everybody went to work manufacturin' and bottlin', and preservin' eggs and puttin' down butter, expectin' to sell their humbug stuff to the neighbors. Don't you think the business would be a little bit overdone?"
The lady agent bent her head, thinking it over. In a little while she looked up, grinning whimsically, as if it hurt somewhere, but she was not going to let anybody see the spot if it cost her life.
"I guess the man that wrote the book never thought of that; I'm sure I never did," she confessed.
"Did you ever sell any of them books anywhere?"
"Yes, I've sold a good many—about fifty-three, I
