Neither the meal nor the appointments of the car contained anything that I had not enjoyed scores of times before--in the hotels at which I stopped or at the restaurants at which I would dine and wine some of my customers; but to eat such a meal amid such surroundings while on the move was a novel experience. The electric lights, the soft red glint of the mahogany walls, the whiteness of the table linen, the silent efficiency of the colored waiters, coupled with the fact that all this was speeding onward through the night, made me feel as though I were partaking of a repast in an enchanted palace. The easy urbanity of the three well-dressed Americans gave me a sense of uncanny gentility and bliss

"Can it be that I am I?" I seemed to be wondering

The gaunt, elderly man, who was a member of a wholesale butcher concern, was seated diagonally across the table from me, but my eye was for the most part fixed on him rather than on the fat man who occupied the seat directly opposite mine. He was the most refined-looking man of the three and his vocabulary matched his appearance and manner. He fascinated me. His cultured English and ways conflicted in my mind with the character of his business. I could not help thinking of raw beef, bones, and congealed blood. I said to myself, "It takes a country like America to produce butchers who look and speak like noblemen." The United States was still full of surprises for me.

I was still discovering America

After dinner, when we were in the smoking-room again, it seemed to me that the three Gentiles were tired of me. Had I talked too much? Had I made a nuisance of myself? I was wretched

CHAPTER V I LOST track of Loeb before the train reached Chicago, but about a fortnight later, when I was in St. Louis, I encountered him again. It was on a Monday morning. With sample-case in hand, I was crossing one of the busiest spots in the shopping district with preoccupied mien, when he hailed me: "Hello, Levinsky! How long have you been here?"

"Just arrived," I answered

"Where are you stopping?"

I named my hotel. I could see that he was taking note of the fact that I was crossing the street to the Great Bazar, one of the largest department stores in St. Louis

"I am going to tackle Huntington this morning," I said, with mild defiance

"Are you? Wish you luck," he remarked, quite gravely. "You'll find him a pretty tough customer, though." He was apparently too busy to indulge in raillery. "Wish you luck," he repeated, and was off

Huntington was the new head of the cloak-and-suit department in the Great Bazar, and in this capacity he was said to be doing wonders. It was not true that I had just arrived. I had been in the city nearly three days, and the day before I had mailed a letter to Huntington upon which I was building great hopes. I knew but too well that he was a "tough customer," my previous efforts to obtain an interview with him--in New York as well as here, in St.

Louis--having proven futile. I was too small a fish for him. Nor, indeed, was the Great Bazar the only large department store in the country whose door was closed to me. Barring six or seven such stores, in as many cities, with which I was in touch largely through the good offices of Eaton, my business was almost confined to small concerns. Eaton had given me letters to many other large firms, but these had brought no result. For one thing, my Russian name was against me. As I have said before, the American business world had not yet learned to take our people seriously

And so I had written Huntington, making a special plea for a few minutes of his "most valuable time." All I asked for was an opportunity "to point out some specific conditions that enable our house to reduce the cost of production to an unheard-of level." If he had only read that letter! I had bestowed so much effort on it, and I gave myself credit for having made a fine job of it

Arriving at the big store, I made my way to the sample-rooms. I did so by a freight-elevator, the passenger-cars being denied to men carrying sample-cases. In the waiting-room of the buyers' offices I found four or five men, all of them accompanied by colored porters who carried their sample-cases for them. A neat-looking office-boy, behind a small desk, was rocking on the hind legs of his chair with an air of supreme indifference.

"Will you take it in?" I said to him, handing him my card. "I want to see Mr. Huntington."

"Mr. Huntington is busy," he answered, mechanically, without ceasing to rock.

"Take it in, please," I whispered, imploringly. But he took no heed of me.

Had I been the only salesman in the room, I should have offered him a bribe.

As it was, there was nothing to do but to take a seat and wait

"These office-boys treat salesmen like so many dogs," I muttered, addressing myself to the man by my side

He sized me up, without deigning an answer.

Other salesmen made their appearance, some modestly, others with a studied air of confidence, loudly greeting those they knew. The presence of so many rivals and the frigidity of the office-boy made my heart heavy. I was still a novice at the game, and the least mark of hostility was apt to have a depressing effect on my spirits, though, as a rule, it only added fuel to my ambition

Some of the other salesmen were chatting and cracking jokes, for all the world like a group of devoted friends gathered for some common purpose. The ostensible meaning of it all was that the competition in which they were engaged was a "mere matter of business," of civilized rivalry; that it was not supposed to interfere with their friendship and mutual sense of fair play. But I thought that all this was mere pretense, and that at the bottom of their hearts each of them felt like wiping the rest of us off the face of the earth

Presently the office-boy gathered up our cards and disappeared behind a door. He was gone quite a few minutes. They were hours to me. I was in the toils of suspense, in a fever of eagerness and anxiety. As I sat gazing at the door through which the office-boy had vanished, Mr. Huntington loomed in my imagination large and formidable, mighty and stern. To be admitted to his presence was at this moment the highest aim of my life. Running through my anxious mind were various phrases from the letter I had sent him. Some of these seemed to be highly felicitous. The epistle was bound to make an impression. "Provided he has read it," I thought, anxiously. "But why should he have bothered with it? He probably receives scores like it. No, he has not read it."

The next moment it became clear to me that the opening sentence of my plea was sure to have arrested Huntington's attention, that he had read it to the end, and would let me not only show him my samples, but explain matters as well. Of a sudden, however, it struck me, to my horror, that I had no recollection of having signed that letter of mine

A middle-aged woman with a Jewish cast of features passed through the waiting-room. I knew that she was Huntington's assistant and she was apparently going to his compartment of the sample-room. The fact that she had a Jewish face seemed encouraging. Not that the Jews I had met in business had shown me more leniency or cordiality than the average Gentile.

Nor was an assistant buyer, as a rule, in a position to do something for a salesman unless his samples had been referred to her by her superior.

Nevertheless, her Jewish features spoke of kinship to me. They softened the grimness of the atmosphere around me

Finally the office-boy came back. My heart beat violently. Pausing at his desk, with only two or three of all the cards he had taken to the potentate, he looked at them, as he called out, with great dignity: "Mr. Huntington will see Mr. Sallinger, Mr. Stewart, and Mr. Feltman."

My heart sank. I suspected that my poor card had never reached its destination, that the boy had simply thrown it away, together with some of the other cards, perhaps, on his way to Mr. Huntington's room. Indeed, I knew that this was the fate of many a salesman's card

The boy called out Sallinger's name again, this time admitting him to the inner precincts. All those whose cards had been ignored except myself--there were about a dozen of them--picked up their sample-cases or had their porters do so and passed out without ado. As for me, I simply could not bring myself to leave

"He didn't mark my card, did he?" I said to the boy

"No, sir," he snapped, with a scowl.

When I reached the street I paused for some minutes, as though glued to the sidewalk. Was it all over? Was there no hope of my seeing Huntington? My mind would not be reconciled to such an outcome. I stood racking my brains for some subterfuge by which I might be able to break through the Chinese wall that separated me from the great Mogul, and when I finally set out on my way to other stores I was still brooding over the question. I visited several smaller places that day and I made some sales, but all the while I was displaying my samples, quoting prices, arguing, cajoling, explaining, jesting, the background of my brain never ceased bothering about Huntington and devising means of getting at him

The next morning I was in Huntington's waiting-room again. I fared no better than on the previous occasion. I tried to speak to Huntington on the telephone, but I only succeeded in speaking to a telephone-girl and she told me that he was busy

"Please tell Mr. Huntington I have a job to close out, a seventeen-dollar garment for seven fifty."