goes on Alex, "they want me to go up and see Runyon Q. Sampson, the well-to-do millionaire, and get him to buy the first car. You can imagine what a terrible good advertisement that will be for us if he should buy it, can't you?"
"It'll be O.K. till he tries to ride in it," I says, "and then the chances are you'll have to leave town and the Gaflooey people will be facin' a suit!"
"There ain't another car on the market that can hold a match to the Gaflooey!" hollers Alex, his goat prancin' madly about.
"What's it made out of – celluloid?" I says.
"You may think you're funny!" he tells me, "but that's nothin' more or less than ig'rance. Here I am wastin' valuable time tryin' to explain somethin' to Cousin Alice and you keep interruptin' till a man don't know where he's at! Let's see now, where was I?" he asks the wife.
"The beautiful and good-lookin' princess had just promised to wed you," I says, "but the crusty old king couldn't see into it!"
The wife throws a pillow at me and it busted a vase that cost me three hundred green certificates. After a short brawl over the remains, I laid off Alex and he went ahead.
"As I said before," he goes on, "the president of the Gaflooey Company has selected me to go up and sell old Sampson this here chummy roadster. If I land the order, which naturally enough I will, it means I get made manager of the New York salesrooms. Then me and Eve Rossiter will prob'ly get married and – "
"What?" squeals the wife. "Are you and Eve engaged? And she never said a word to me!"
"How could she?" I says. "When he prob'ly had her doped?"
"No, we ain't engaged," says Alex. "I ain't even asked the girl will she be mine yet."
"Then how do you know she'll marry you?" asks the wife.
"Well," says Alex, "I figure if you married this here pest, I ought to be able to marry anybody! But what I'm up against is this – I got to take one of them roadsters up there to-day and demonstrate it to Sampson. They have gone to work and made an appointment for me, and what I don't know about automobiles would fill seven large libraries. Here I'm supposed to show Mister Sampson the points on our car which is better than any other and I can't tell the windshield from the magneto. Now d'ye blame me for bein' worried?"
"I thought you was the world's greatest salesman," I sneers. "You don't mean to say this job has got you yellin' for the police already, do you? What are you gonna do, quit?"
"Speak English!" he comes back. "That word quit don't belong in our language. Who said anything about quittin'? Even though I don't know a thing about automobiles, I'm gonna sell Runyon Q. Sampson a Gaflooey chummy roadster. A feller don't need knowledge to be a success half as much as he needs confidence and I got more confidence than a feller shootin' at a barn with a double-barrelled shot gun. Anyhow, I'll betcha a rich millionaire like Sampson don't know any too much about automobiles himself, bein' too busy with makin' money and the like, eh?"
"I suppose you're gonna make him think that you know more about them gas buckboards than the guy which wrote 'em, eh?" I says.
"You'll never get nowhere!" he answers, lookin' at me like how can a guy live and be so thick behind the ears. "You'll never be nothin' but an average citizen, because you never get a new idea! No, I ain't gonna make Sampson think I know more about automobiles than anybody in the world – that's what has queered many a sale. I'm gonna make him think he does, and that him buyin' our roadster proves it!"
"I'll bet you could make Rockefeller think they wasn't a nickel in oil!" says the wife admirin'ly.
Alex gets up and reaches for his hat.
"If they was enough money in it for me, I'd try it," he says, "and that ain't no lie!"
I didn't see Alex till the next mornin' and then he blows in the flat.
"Hello!" he says. "Here you are as usual, loafin' away the hull mornin'. It's almost eight o'clock, d'ye know that?"
"Sure!" I says. "You can't get me on that one. The answer is seven fifty-five!"
"What d'ye mean, seven fifty-five?" he asks.
"Ain't seven fifty-five almost eight o'clock," I says, "and didn't you ask me if I knew it?"
"Ain't he clever?" says the wife, pattin' me on the back.
Alex looks at me in open disgust.
"If that's bein' clever," he says, "I'm a professor from Harvard! Where d'ye get that stuff?"
"It's a gift!" I says. "What are you doin' here this hour of the day?"
"Hurry up and git through eatin'," he says, "I want you to take a ride with me."
"What have you been pinched for?" I says.
"Will you leave him be?" butts in the wife. "Don't mind him, Alex, he'll go with you. Where are you going?"
"Up to Runyon Q. Sampson's to sell him a Gaflooey roadster," says Alex. "I got the car right outside now. Just wait till you git a look at it, you'll be crazy to buy one yourself!"
"You said it!" I tells him, puttin' on my coat. "I certainly would be crazy if I bought one of them! Who's gonna drive this up there?"
"I got a mechanic from the shop," says Alex. "A feller which knows so much about automobiles that he could take a pair of pliers and a lug wrench and go clear to Frisco with nothin' else!"
"Not even a car, eh?" I says. "Some mechanic!"
"Be still!" says the wife. "Well, Alex, I certainly hope you have all kinds of luck. Let me know how you make out, will you?"
"Sure!" I tells her. "Call up police headquarters in about an hour and you'll prob'ly be able to get all the details, right off the blotter."
We go outside and there's the Gaflooey chummy roadster leanin' right up against the curb. It looked like it might be a regular automobile when it grew up, but just then it seemed like it had been snatched from the cradle before its features was fully formed. Two of them roadsters would of made a nice pair of roller skates and the expense for tires must of been practically nothin', because the ones that was on it looked like a set of washers. The body was painted yellah and the trimmin's was in Alice blue and catsup red.
In the front seat is this guy which Alex claimed was the world's greatest mechanic. You could see that at a glance anyhow, because he was dressed in a pair of overalls that had lasted him ever since he first broke into the automobile game and he carried about three quarts of medium oil on his face and hands.
"Well," says Alex, throwin' out his chest, "what d'ye think old Runyon Q. Sampson will say when he casts his eye over that, eh?"
"You'd only get sore if I told you," I says, "but I'll say this much, Alex. If you can sell him that mechanical toy there on the pretense that it's an automobile, I'm goin' up to-morrow and sell him Grant's Tomb for a paperweight!"
"Git in," pipes Alex, "and stop knockin'!"
"I won't have to knock after we get started – that's if we do," I tells him, forcin' myself into the rear, "the motor will look after that!"
Alex nudges the mechanic.
"This here's my cousin," he tells him. "He ain't a bad feller in spite of that."
