Part 5 (2/2)
”If they're well acquainted!” I says.
”Will you leave the boy alone?” asks the wife. ”I never saw anybody like you in my life!”
”Don't I know it?” I says. ”Otherwise, how would we ever of got married?”
”Now,” goes on Alex, ”they want me to go up and see Runyon Q. Sampson, the well-to-do millionaire, and get him to buy the first car. You can imagine what a terrible good advertis.e.m.e.nt that will be for us if he should buy it, can't you?”
”It'll be O.K. till he tries to ride in it,” I says, ”and then the chances are you'll have to leave town and the Gaflooey people will be facin' a suit!”
”There ain't another car on the market that can hold a match to the Gaflooey!” hollers Alex, his goat prancin' madly about.
”What's it made out of--celluloid?” I says.
”You may think you're funny!” he tells me, ”but that's nothin' more or less than ig'rance. Here I am wastin' valuable time tryin' to explain somethin' to Cousin Alice and you keep interruptin' till a man don't know where he's at! Let's see now, where was I?” he asks the wife.
”The beautiful and good-lookin' princess had just promised to wed you,”
I says, ”but the crusty old king couldn't see into it!”
The wife throws a pillow at me and it busted a vase that cost me three hundred green certificates. After a short brawl over the remains, I laid off Alex and he went ahead.
”As I said before,” he goes on, ”the president of the Gaflooey Company has selected me to go up and sell old Sampson this here chummy roadster. If I land the order, which naturally enough I will, it means I get made manager of the New York salesrooms. Then me and Eve Rossiter will prob'ly get married and--”
”What?” squeals the wife. ”Are you and Eve engaged? And she never said a word to me!”
”How could she?” I says. ”When he prob'ly had her doped?”
”No, we ain't engaged,” says Alex. ”I ain't even asked the girl will she be mine yet.”
”Then how do you know she'll marry you?” asks the wife.
”Well,” says Alex, ”I figure if you married this here pest, I ought to be able to marry anybody! But what I'm up against is this--I got to take one of them roadsters up there to-day and demonstrate it to Sampson. They have gone to work and made an appointment for me, and what I don't know about automobiles would fill seven large libraries.
Here I'm supposed to show Mister Sampson the points on our car which is better than any other and I can't tell the winds.h.i.+eld from the magneto.
Now d'ye blame me for bein' worried?”
”I thought you was the world's greatest salesman,” I sneers. ”You don't mean to say this job has got you yellin' for the police already, do you? What are you gonna do, quit?”
”Speak Englis.h.!.+” he comes back. ”That word quit don't belong in our language. Who said anything about quittin'? Even though I don't know a thing about automobiles, I'm gonna sell Runyon Q. Sampson a Gaflooey chummy roadster. A feller don't need knowledge to be a success half as much as he needs confidence and I got more confidence than a feller shootin' at a barn with a double-barrelled shot gun. Anyhow, I'll betcha a rich millionaire like Sampson don't know any too much about automobiles himself, bein' too busy with makin' money and the like, eh?”
”I suppose you're gonna make him think that you know more about them gas buckboards than the guy which wrote 'em, eh?” I says.
”You'll never get nowhere!” he answers, lookin' at me like how can a guy live and be so thick behind the ears. ”You'll never be nothin' but an average citizen, because you never get a new idea! No, I ain't gonna make Sampson think _I_ know more about automobiles than anybody in the world--that's what has queered many a sale. I'm gonna make him think _he_ does, and that him buyin' our roadster proves it!”
”I'll bet you could make Rockefeller think they wasn't a nickel in oil!” says the wife admirin'ly.
Alex gets up and reaches for his hat.
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