“Course I don’t mean to say that every ad I write is literally true or that I always believe everything I say when I give some buyer a good strong selling-spiel.  You see—­you see it’s like this:  In the first place, maybe the owner of the property exaggerated when he put it into my hands, and it certainly isn’t my place to go proving my principal a liar!  And then most folks are so darn crooked themselves that they expect a fellow to do a little lying, so if I was fool enough to never whoop the ante I’d get the credit for lying anyway!  In self-defense I got to toot my own horn, like a lawyer defending a client—­his bounden duty, ain’t it, to bring out the poor dub’s good points?  Why, the Judge himself would bawl out a lawyer that didn’t, even if they both knew the guy was guilty!  But even so, I don’t pad out the truth like Cecil Rountree or Thayer or the rest of these realtors.  Fact, I think a fellow that’s willing to deliberately up and profit by lying ought to be shot!”

Babbitt’s value to his clients was rarely better shown than this morning, in the conference at eleven-thirty between himself, Conrad Lyte, and Archibald Purdy.

V

Conrad Lyte was a real-estate speculator.  He was a nervous speculator.  Before he gambled he consulted bankers, lawyers, architects, contracting builders, and all of their clerks and stenographers who were willing to be cornered and give him advice.  He was a bold entrepreneur, and he desired nothing more than complete safety in his investments, freedom from attention to details, and the thirty or forty per cent. profit which, according to all authorities, a pioneer deserves for his risks and foresight.  He was a stubby man with a cap-like mass of short gray curls and clothes which, no matter how well cut, seemed shaggy.  Below his eyes were semicircular hollows, as though silver dollars had been pressed against them and had left an imprint.

Particularly and always Lyte consulted Babbitt, and trusted in his slow cautiousness.

Six months ago Babbitt had learned that one Archibald Purdy, a grocer in the indecisive residential district known as Linton, was talking of opening a butcher shop beside his grocery.  Looking up the ownership of adjoining parcels of land, Babbitt found that Purdy owned his present shop but did not own the one available lot adjoining.  He advised Conrad Lyte to purchase this lot, for eleven thousand dollars, though an appraisal on a basis of rents did not indicate its value as above nine thousand.  The rents, declared Babbitt, were too low; and by waiting they could make Purdy come to their price. (This was Vision.) He had to bully Lyte into buying.  His first act as agent for Lyte was to increase the rent of the battered store-building on the lot.  The tenant said a number of rude things, but he paid.

Now, Purdy seemed ready to buy, and his delay was going to cost him ten thousand extra dollars—­the reward paid by the community to Mr. Conrad Lyte for the virtue of employing a broker who had Vision and who understood Talking Points, Strategic Values, Key Situations, Underappraisals, and the Psychology of Salesmanship.