第31章

"When I started out," continued Scarborough, "I, too, had just glanced at the book and had learned a few facts from the prospectus.And I failed to sell, except to an occasional fool whom I was able to overpower.Every one instinctively felt the estimate I myself placed upon my goods.But as I went on the book gradually forced itself upon me.And, long before the summer was over, I felt that I was an ambassador of education to those eager people.And I'm proud that I sold as many books as Idid.Each book, I know, is a radiating center of pleasure, of thought, of aspiration to higher things.No, ladies and gentlemen, you must first learn that these eight hundred pages crowded with facts of history, these six hundred illustrations taken from the best sources and flooding the text with light, together constitute a work that should be in all humble households."Scarborough had his audience with him now.

"Never sneer," he said in conclusion."Sneering will accomplish nothing.Learn your business.Put yourself, your BEST self, into it.And then you may hope to succeed at it."He divided his pupils into six classes of about twenty each and dismissed them, asking the first class to come at three the next afternoon.The young men and young women went thoughtfully away;they were revolving their initial lesson in the cardinal principle of success--enthusiasm.When the two friends were alone Pierson said: "Do you know, I'm beginning to get a glimpse of you.And I see there isn't anything beyond your reach.You'll get whatever you want."Scarborough's reply was a sudden look of dejection, an impatient shrug.Then he straightened himself, lifted his head with a lion-like toss that shook back the obstinate lock of hair from his forehead.He laid his hand on his friend's shoulder.

"Yes," he said, "because I'm determined to want whatever Iget.Good fortune and bad--everything shall be grist for THISmill."

Pierson attended next day's class and afterward went to Olivia with an account of it.

"You ought to have seen him put those fellows through, one at a time.I tell you, he'll teach them more in the next three months than they'll learn of the whole faculty.And this summer he'll get every man and woman of them enough to pay their way through college next year.""What did he do to-day?" asked Olivia.Of the many qualities she loved in Pierson, the one she loved most was his unbounded, unselfish admiration for his friend.

"He took each man separately, the others watching and listening.

First he'd play the part of book agent with his pupil as a reluctant customer.Then he'd reverse, and the pupil as agent would try to sell him the book, he pretending to be an ignorant, obstinate, ill-natured, close-fisted farmer or farmer's wife.It was a liberal education in the art of persuasion.If his pupils had his brains and his personality, Peaks of Progress would be on the center-table in half the farm parlors of Wisconsin and Minnesota by September.""IF they had his personality, and IF they had his brains," said Olivia.

"Well, as it is, he'll make the dumbest ass in the lot bray to some purpose."In September, when Scarborough closed his headquarters at Milwaukee and set out for Indianapolis, he found that the average earnings of his agents were two hundred and seventy-five dollars, and that he himself had made forty-three hundred.Mills came and offered him a place in the publishing house at ten thousand a year and a commission.He instantly rejected it.He had already arranged to spend a year with one of the best law firms in Indianapolis before opening an office in Saint X, the largest town in the congressional district in which his farm lay.

"But there's no hurry about deciding," said Mills."Remember we'll make you rich in a few years.""My road happens not to lie in that direction," replied Scarborough, carelessly."I've no desire to be rich.It's too easy, if one will consent to give money-making his exclusive attention."Mills looked amused--had he not known Scarborough's ability, he would have felt derisive.

"Money's power," said he."And there are only two ambitions for a wide-awake man--money and power.""Money can't buy the kind of power I'd care for," answered Scarborough."If I were to seek power, it'd be the power that comes through ability to persuade.""Money talks," said Mills, laughing.

"Money bellows," retorted Scarborough,, "and bribes and browbeats, bully and coward that it is.But it never persuades.""I'll admit it's a coward." `

`And I hope I can always frighten enough of it into my service to satisfy my needs.But I'm not spending my life in its service--no, thank you!"