“You jest let that new-fangled truck alone,” he said, “till you get more forehanded in cash and experience.  Then you may learn how to make something out of them novelties, as they call ’em, if they are worth growing at all.  Now and then a good penny is turned on a new fruit or vegetable; but how to do it will be one of the last tricks that you’ll learn in your new trade.  Hand me one of them misleadin’ books, and I’ll mark a few solid kinds such as produce ninety-nine hundredths of all that’s used or sold.  Then you go to What-you-call-’em’s store, and take a line from me, and you’ll git the genuine article at market-gardeners’ prices.”

“Now, Mr. Bogart, you are treating me like a man and a brother.”

“Oh thunder!  I’m treating you like one who, p’raps, may deal with me.  Do as you please about it, but if you want to take along a lot of my business cards and fasten ’em to anything you have to sell, I’ll give you all they bring, less my commission.”

“I’ve no doubt you will, and that’s more than I can believe of a good many in your line, if all’s true that I hear.  You have thrown a broad streak of daylight into my future.  So you see the fool didn’t part with his money, or with you either, until he got a good deal more than he expected.”

“Well, well, Mr. Durham, you’ll have to get used to my rough ways.  When I’ve anything to say, I don’t beat about the bush.  But you’ll always find my checks good for their face.”

“Yes, and the face back of them is that of a friend to me now.  We’ll shake again.  Good-by;” and I went home feeling as if I had solid ground under my feet.  At supper I went over the whole scene, taking off the man in humorous pantomime, not ridicule, and even my wife grew hilarious over her disappointed hopes of the “new-fangled truck.”  I managed, however, that the children should not lose the lesson that a rough diamond is better than a smooth paste stone, and that people often do themselves an injury when they take offence too easily.

“I see it all, papa,” chuckled Merton; “if you had gone off mad when he the same as called you a fool, you would have lost all his good advice.”

“I should have lost much more than that, my boy, I should have lost the services of a good friend and an honest man to whom we can send for its full worth whatever we can’t sell to better advantage at home.  But don’t mistake me, Merton, toadyism never pays, no matter what you may gain by it; for you give manhood for such gain, and that’s a kind of property that one can never part with and make a good bargain.  You see the old man didn’t mean to be insolent.  As he said, it was only his rough, blunt way of saying what was uppermost in his mind.”

CHAPTER VII

MR. JONES SHOWS ME THE PLACE