I thought:  “Now, this is the man whom I saw twenty-five years ago.”  On that occasion I not only went free at his hands, but carried off something more than that.  I hoped it would happen again.

It was twenty-five years ago when I saw a young clerk in Putnam’s bookstore.  I went in there and asked for George Haven Putnam, and handed him my card, and then the young man said Mr. Putnam was busy and I couldn’t see him.  Well, I had merely called in a social way, and so it didn’t matter.

I was going out when I saw a great big, fat, interesting-looking book lying there, and I took it up.  It was an account of the invasion of England in the fourteenth century by the Preaching Friar, and it interested me.

I asked him the price of it, and he said four dollars.

“Well,” I said, “what discount do you allow to publishers?”

He said:  “Forty percent. off.”

I said:  “All right, I am a publisher.”

He put down the figure, forty per cent. off, on a card.

Then I said:  “What discount do you allow to authors?”

He said:  “Forty per cent. off.”

“Well,” I said, “set me down as an author.”

“Now,” said I, “what discount do you allow to the clergy?”

He said:  “Forty per cent. off.”

I said to him that I was only on the road, and that I was studying for the ministry.  I asked him wouldn’t he knock off twenty per cent. for that.  He set down the figure, and he never smiled once.

I was working off these humorous brilliancies on him and getting no return—­not a scintillation in his eye, not a spark of recognition of what I was doing there.  I was almost in despair.

I thought I might try him once more, so I said “Now, I am also a member of the human race.  Will you let me have the ten per cent. off for that?” He set it down, and never smiled.

Well, I gave it up.  I said:  “There is my card with my address on it, but I have not any money with me.  Will you please send the bill to Hartford?” I took up the book and was going away.

He said:  “Wait a minute.  There is forty cents coming to you.”

When I met him in the tax office I thought maybe I could make something again, but I could not.  But I had not any idea I could when I came, and as it turned out I did get off entirely free.

I put up my hand and made a statement.  It gave me a good deal of pain to do that.  I was not used to it.  I was born and reared in the higher circles of Missouri, and there we don’t do such things—­didn’t in my time, but we have got that little matter settled—­got a sort of tax levied on me.

Then he touched me.  Yes, he touched me this time, because he cried —­cried!  He was moved to tears to see that I, a virtuous person only a year before, after immersion for one year—­during one year in the New York morals—­had no more conscience than a millionaire.