“Wait a minute!  Would you stick to me for six months if I took you on?”

“My dear Kurtz, I’ll poultice myself upon you for life.  I’ll guarantee myself not to slide, slip, wrinkle, or skid.  Thirty years hence, when you come hobbling down to business, you’ll find me here.”

Mr. Kurtz dealt in novelties, and the idea of a society salesman was sufficiently new to appeal to his commercial sense.

“I’ll pay you twenty per cent.,” he offered, “for all the new names you put on my books.”

“Make it twenty-five on first orders and twenty on repeaters.  I’ll bring my own luncheon and pay my car-fare.”

“There wouldn’t be any profit left,” demurred Kurtz.

“Good!  Then it’s a bargain—­twenty-five and twenty.  Now watch me grab the adolescent offshoots of our famous Four Hundred.”  Bob chased Ying into a corner, captured him, then took a ’bus up the Avenue to the College Club for luncheon.

At three o’clock he returned, accompanied by four flushed young men whose names gave Kurtz a thrill.  In spite of their modish appearance they declared themselves indecently shabby, and allowed Bob to order for them—­a favor which he performed with a Rajah’s lofty disregard of expense.  He sat upon one of the carved tables, teasing Ying, and selecting samples as if for a quartette of bridegrooms.  Being bosom cronies of Mr. Cady, the four youths needed little urging.  When they had gone in to be measured Kurtz said guardedly: 

“Whew!  That’s more stuff than I’ve sold in two weeks!”

“A mere trifle,” Bob grinned, happily.  “Say, Kurtz, this is the life!  This is the job for me—­panhandling juvenile plutocrats—­no office hours, no heavy lifting, and Thursdays off.  I’m going to make you famous.”

“You’ll break me with another run like this.”

“How much did they order?”

The proprietor ran over his figures incredulously.

“Twenty-four sack suits, two riding-suits, one knicker, four evening suits, four dinner-suits, forty fancy waistcoats, sixteen evening waistcoats, four pairs riding-breeches, four motor-coats, three Vicuna overcoats, two ulsters.  You don’t think they’re bluffing?”

“Why should they bluff?  They’ll never discover how many suits they have.  Now figure it up and tell me the bad news.”

Mr. Kurtz did as directed, announcing, “Fifty-five hundred and five dollars.”

“Pikers!” exclaimed the new salesman; then he began laboriously to compute twenty-five per cent. of the sum, using as a pad a bolt of expensive white-silk vest material.  “Thirteen hundred and seventy-six dollars and twenty-five cents is my blackmail, Kurtz.  That’s what I call ‘a safe and sane Fourth.’  Not bad for dull times, and yet it might be better.  Anyhow, it’s the hardest thirteen hundred and seventy-six dollars I ever earned.”

“Hard!” The merchant’s lips twitched, oscillating his cigar violently.  “Hard!  I’ll bet those fellows even bought your lunch.  I suppose you mean it’s the first money you ever—­earned.”  He seemed to choke over the last word.  “Well, it’s worth something to get men like these on the books, but—­thirteen hundred and seventy-six dollars—­”