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"Coketown!" droned the porter, making his way through the slowing car. Pescud gathered his hat and baggage with the leisurely promptness of an old traveller. "I married her a year ago," said John. "I told you I built a house in the East End. The belted I mean the colonel is there, too.
At three o'clock Klein brought his Wall Street friend to see us in Silver's room. "Mr. Morgan" looked some like his pictures, and he had a Turkish towel wrapped around his left foot, and he walked with a cane. "Mr. Silver and Mr. Pescud," says Klein. "It sounds superfluous," says he, "to mention the name of the greatest financial " "Cut it out, Klein," says Mr. Morgan.
And then the critic or Philistine, whichever he was, veered his chair toward the window, and I knew him at once for John A. Pescud, of Pittsburgh, travelling salesman for a plate-glass company an old acquaintance whom I had not seen in two years. In two minutes we were faced, had shaken hands, and had finished with such topics as rain, prosperity, health, residence, and destination.
I told him everything I knew; and then he began to ask questions, and I told him the rest. All I asked of him was to give me a chance. If I couldn't make a hit with the little lady, I'd clear out, and not bother any more. At last he says: "'There was a Sir Courtenay Pescud in the time of Charles I, if I remember rightly. "'If there was, says I, 'he can't claim kin with our bunch.
"Yes," said Pescud, "but these kind of love-stories are rank on the level. I know something about literature, even if I am in plate-glass. These kind of books are wrong, and yet I never go into a train but what they pile 'em up on me. No good can come out of an international clinch between the Old-World aristocracy and one of us fresh Americans.
"She smiles a little, and blushes some, but her eyes never get mixed up. They look straight at whatever she's talking to. "'I never had any one talk like this to me before, Mr. Pescud, says she. 'What did you say your name is John? "'John A., says I. "'And you came mighty near missing the train at Powhatan Junction, too, says she, with a laugh that sounded as good as a mileage-book to me.
Politics might have followed next; but I was not so ill-fated. I wish you might know John A. Pescud. He is of the stuff that heroes are not often lucky enough to be made of. He is a small man with a wide smile, and an eye that seems to be fixed upon that little red spot on the end of your nose. I never saw him wear but one kind of necktie, and he believes in cuff-holders and button-shoes.
"I think I understand you, John," said I. "You want fiction-writers to be consistent with their scenes and characters. They shouldn't mix Turkish pashas with Vermont farmers, or English dukes with Long Island clam-diggers, or Italian countesses with Montana cowboys, or Cincinnati brewery agents with the rajahs of India." "Or plain business men with aristocracy high above 'em," added Pescud.
Maybe I've had notions about them somewhat like yours. But tell me more about yourself. Getting along all right with the company?" "Bully," said Pescud, brightening at once. "I've had my salary raised twice since I saw you, and I get a commission, too. I've bought a neat slice of real estate out in the East End, and have run up a house on it.
By way of facts, he told me that business had picked up since the party conventions, and that he was going to get off at Coketown. "Say," said Pescud, stirring his discarded book with the toe of his right shoe, "did you ever read one of these best-sellers?
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