"Salesman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dollars, title to which had vested in him on the northward trip, together with certain miscellaneous objects of virtu, but he resisted the impulse, fearing that an investigation by his nurse might lead the latter to believe that he, Bill, was not a harness-maker at all, but a jewelry salesman. He determined to spring that roll at a later date, and to present the doctor with a very thin, very choice gold watch out of State-room 27. Bill carried out this intention when he had sufficiently ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... refuge in pride because we are afraid to tell the truth to ourselves. How can one be serious with the world when the world itself is so ridiculous! The spirit of barter is everywhere. Honour and Chastity! Behold the complacent salesman retailing the Good and True. One can even buy a so-called Religion, which is really but common morality sanctified with flowers and music. Rob the Church of her accessories and what remains behind? Yet the ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... come East chop-chop, urgent? Grdznth problem getting to be a PRoblem, need expert icebox salesman to get gators out of hair fast. Yes? Math boys hot on this, citizens not so hot. Please ...
— PRoblem • Alan Edward Nourse
... wondered with misgivings what the farmer who had gone into the back office was talking about, and hearing angry voices, felt sorry he had made some alterations in the man's order. Certain stale goods carried a commission if the salesman could work them off, but the thing needed tact and a knowledge of the customer's temper. Drummond feared he ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... suitings, and addicted to brown derbies. One week on the road, one week at home. That was his routine. The wholesale grocery trade liked Platt, and he had for his customers the fondness that a travelling salesman has who is successful in his territory. Before his marriage to Terry Sheehan his little red address book had been overwhelming proof against the theory that ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... turning to look at the professor admiringly. "You are a very brave man, Professor Hemmingwell, to risk so much. And, I might add, you must be an excellent salesman to sell Solar Alliance bankers ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... parents' names indicate that the tinge was an inheritance. It was an affectionate family, hence all four of its members had pet names, Saladin's was a curious and unsexing one—Sally; and so was Electra's—Aleck. All day long Sally was a good and diligent book-keeper and salesman; all day long Aleck was a good and faithful mother and housewife, and thoughtful and calculating business woman; but in the cozy living-room at night they put the plodding world away, and lived in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his product, while his energy, industry, and frugality steadily increased his surplus cash, and enabled him, without borrowing capital, to extend his sphere of operations. For many years, he carried on his glue business without bookkeeper, agent, or salesman. Dawn found him at the suburban factory (on what is now Thirty-Second Street) lighting the fires and preparing for the day's work; at noon, he drove in his buggy to the city, where he made his own sales and purchases; and all his evenings he spent at home, making up his accounts, answering ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond
... an observer. Each story presented some singularity; on the first floor four tall, narrow windows, close together, were filled as to the lower panes with boards, so as to produce the doubtful light by which a clever salesman can ascribe to his goods the color his customers inquire for. The young man seemed very scornful of this part of the house; his eyes had not yet rested on it. The windows of the second floor, where the Venetian blinds were drawn up, revealing little dingy muslin curtains behind the large ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... The salesman had mounted upon a chair, and his keen, clean-shaven face overlooked the crowd. Mr. Jack Flynn's grey whiskers were at his elbow, and Mr. Holloway immediately ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... intensely masculine head of a mediaeval soldier. There was a bit of curl to the dark-brown hair which swept his broad, low forehead, his brown eyes were devoid of fear or imagination, his jaw was set, and the big, aggressive head rested on a short, muscular neck. He had been a salesman of machine tools till the "selling end" came ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... errand-boy in Mr. Preston's shop. Henry, upon whom Oscar wished to lay the burden occasioned by Frank's absence, was a young clerk, who had formerly served as chore-boy, but was now quite useful as a salesman. ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... of the beginning. From that he had passed to speculation, and three hundred gold "lions" out of Elizabeth's thousand had vanished one evening in the share market. Now he was glad his good looks secured him a trial in the position of salesman to the Suzannah Hat Syndicate, a Syndicate, dealing in ladies' caps, hair decorations, and hats—for though the city was completely covered in, ladies still wore extremely elaborate and beautiful hats at the theatres ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... Strive and Succeed. Strong and Steady. Struggling Upward. Tin Box. Tom, the Bootblack. Tony, the Tramp. Try and Trust. Wait and Hope. Walter Sherwood's Probation. Young Acrobat. Young Adventurer. Young Outlaw. Young Salesman. ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... wardrobe. His pre-war clothes had served nicely to wear about the cannery. But they were hopelessly out of style. Why hadn't he taken the time to have had something decent made in Port Angeles instead of taking the first thing in 'hand-me-downs' which the salesman had offered? He surveyed the suit ruefully. Then he reflected that his errand was purely one of business and hastily ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... too! He says everybody calls him Lord Freddie. But come along, and I'll call him Lord—Frederick—Bingham,' with a voice of awe and appropriate pauses between the words. 'He always seems so trivial compared with his name; he reminds me of a salesman at a remnant counter, and I don't wonder everybody calls him Lord Freddie. I'm afraid I'm a disappointed woman, Lady Willow. I suppose the men have retrograded since armour went out of fashion; they had to be big and strong then to carry so much ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... was the itinerant salesman whose s'fel threw a shoe. He knocked on the door of the hut of the nearest peasant and said...." What was said by the ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... speak from experience) are the poses and the incurable loquaciousness of some of his callers and correspondents. Don't attempt to spring any correspondence school salesmanship on a real editor. Learn what real salesmanship is, from a real salesman—who may sell bacon, or steel or motor cars instead of manuscripts. He lives down your street, perhaps. Have a talk with him. He will tell you of the profits in a square deal and in knowing your business, and what can be accomplished by ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... passed over," said Mr. Humphreys, swallowing hard, "your sending gravel to the grocer and a bellows to the minister by mistake; but this is the limit. If there is anybody advertising for a gilt-edged failure as a salesman, you go apply for the job and say I recommend you enthusiastically. I hate like the devil to fire you, Peter, but it's a plain case of self-defense with me: I have to do it. You're fired. Now. Come on in the office," ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... he said carelessly. "That's all a matter of salesmanship. An honest, enthusiastic salesman will boost his goods to the skies because that's the way they look to him. A farmer with a bunch of hill and rocks as his property will swear he's got the finest farm in the country because he's enthusiastic about it. This is wild land here—a wild, wild land proposition. It may look ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... trouble of many years' standing by reading Science and Health. My condition had reached the stage in which I had periodical attacks, that came on with greater frequency. I was a travelling salesman, and it was a common occurrence for me to have to call a physician to my hotel to administer morphine for an acute form of this disease. This became a regular thing at certain places, and these attacks always left me worse than before. As a result of the last one ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... queens. In every house, too (to show how nothing ever changes), the towels are folded in the same peculiar way. In every grate in the kingdom the coal fire is laid in precisely the same way. There is not a salesman in any shop on Piccadilly who does not, in the season, wear a long-tail coat. Everywhere they say a second grace at dinner—not at the end—but before the dessert, because two hundred years ago they dared not wait longer ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... a bauble that glittered prettily on its black silk bracelet, and was not shocked in the least when told by the engaging salesman that its price was a sum for which in the old days Gashwiler had demanded a good ten weeks of his life. Indeed it seemed rather cheap to him when he remembered the event it should celebrate. Still, it was a pleasing trifle ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... this procedure to put on strange garments in a little closet and come forth to pose before mirrors under the critical eye of a living Charley Wax. Fortunately the tailor and the polite and expeditious salesman of the ready-to-wear emporium have this in common: art or nature has in both cases produced a man seemingly with no sense of humor. Fortunately, too, in both cases a gentleman goes alone to acquire a new suit. I have seen it suggested in the advertising ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... drug counter a number of men were engaged in earnest conversation with the salesman. Belle needed cold cream and was waiting her turn to tell ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... couldn't complain. She had stuck to him all the way through, whatever the charges against him. When that lug of a traveling salesman had accused her Georgie of picking his pockets, and that female refugee from a TV studio had charged poor harmless Georgie with slugging her, it was his mother who had stood up in court and denounced them, and solemnly told judge and jury what ...
— Divinity • William Morrison
... widow only three weeks. She'd never worked before, but there was no money. She lived all alone, wandered out for her meals—no mother, no father, no sisters or brothers. She cried every night. Her husband had been a traveling salesman—sometimes he made eighty-five dollars a week. They had a six-room apartment and a servant! She'd met him at a dance hall. A girl she was with had dared her to wink at him. Sure she'd do anything anybody dared ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... glass cases and chandeliers, and caused to be painted in large yellow characters the sign "Despacho de la Sociedad Biblica y Estrangera" (Depot of the Biblical and Foreign Society). He engaged a Gallegan (Jose Calzado, whom he called Pepe) as salesman, and on 27th November formally opened his new premises. Customers soon presented themselves; but many were disappointed on finding that they could not obtain the Bible. "I could have sold ten times the amount of what I did," Borrow writes. "I MUST therefore be furnished with Bibles ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... nonsense. He's not in the least like an actor. Anybody could see by his tread and his air that he's never been on the stage. He's more like a travelling salesman. The next thing he'll do will be to pull out of that bag some samples of spool thread ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... Marshal Foch and Kitchener and the King and Queen of Belgium. All had been printed in Leipzig, and when I asked the bookseller how that could be, he replied that he got them from the German commercial travellers. He said that he had himself been surprised at the samples shown him, but the salesman had remarked that he thought such post-cards would have a good sale in Luxemburg, and if such were the case "business was business," and he was prepared to supply them. There was even one of King Albert standing with drawn sword, saying: "You shall not violate ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... lung, wan kidney, five brains. Derringer, four hearts, two brains. This has seldom been excelled. Among th' minor casualties resultin' fr'm this painful but delightful soiree was th' followin': Erastus Haitch Muggins, kilt be jumpin' fr'm th' roof; Blank Cassidy, hide an' pelt salesman fr'm Chicago, burrid undher victims; Captain Epaminondas Lucius Quintus Cassius Marcellus Xerxes Cyrus Bangs of Hoganpolis, Hamilcar Township, Butseen County, died iv hear-rt disease whin his scoor was tied. Th' ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... commandments all the balance of the week. It comes natural to them to lie and cheat in the first place, and then they go on and improve on nature until they arrive at perfection. In recommending his son to a merchant as a valuable salesman, a father does not say he is a nice, moral, upright boy, and goes to Sunday School and is honest, but he says, "This boy is worth his weight in broad pieces of a hundred—for behold, he will cheat whomsoever hath dealings with him, and from the Euxine to the waters of Marmora there abideth ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... began to have a respect for Aline's judgment when the papers reported that prices were rising fast, and stock-salesman firms sent circulars to this effect into the districts. But, when I conferred with Jasper, he advised me to hold on. "The figures are climbing," he said, "and they'll reach high-water mark just before the ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... There are instruments of a dozen makes any of which will produce excellent results. The tests to apply in selecting a view camera are its workmanship, compactness, and the various attachments and conveniences it has. The salesman from whom you purchase will explain fully just what its possibilities are, especially if you take some experienced person with you who can ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... value thus created by them, they were to recoup him for what he supplied them with: rent, shelter, gas, water, machinery, raw cotton—everything, and to pay him for his own services as superintendent, manager, and salesman. So far he asked nothing but just remuneration. But after this had been paid, a balance due solely to their own labor remained. 'Out of this,' said my father, 'you shall keep just enough to save you from starving, and of the rest you shall make me a present to reward me for my ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... did before, and as she never had another. Urbana resented it that he who was so soon to occupy the exalted station of an officer of the regular army, and the princely salary of something over a thousand dollars a year "with all expenses paid,"—double the sum enjoyed by the head salesman of Miller & Crofts,—should be so utterly deluded as to the frivolous character of his betrothed, and means were taken to enlighten him. Anonymous letters came to Cadet Davies of the graduating class, which that grave and reverend senior ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Elmer Cowley's face and his hands began to tremble. In Cowley & Son's store a Jewish traveling salesman stood by the counter talking to his father. He imagined the reporter could hear what was being said and the thought made him furious. With one of the shoes still held in his hand he stood in a corner of the shed and stamped with a stockinged foot ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... liquids without spilling them. This man walks with a long, swinging stride; he is obviously not a waiter. His dress and appearance in general exclude the idea of a hawker or even a hall-porter; he is a man of poor physique and so cannot be a policeman. The shop-walker or salesman is accustomed to move in relatively confined spaces, and so acquires a short, brisk step, and his dress tends to rather exuberant smartness; the station official patrols long platforms, often at a rapid pace, and so tends ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... that all the contacts are against the skull and neck," the salesman was saying, his voice muffled by the mentrol hood ...
— Second Sight • Basil Eugene Wells
... my cash capital, and assured him of my ability as a salesman, and my desire to engage in ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... runner, steerer [U.S.], tout, touter^. [poor person] pauper, homeless person, hobo, bum, tramp, bindle stiff, bo, knight of the road (poverty) 804; hippie, flower child; hard core unemployed; welfare client, welfare case. canvasser, bagman &c 758; salesman. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... pleasing presence, and moved serenely and watchfully. By daylight he was a salesman in a piano store. He wore his tie drawn through a topaz ring instead of fastened with a stick pin; and once he had written to the editor of a magazine that "Junie's Love Test" by Miss Libbey, had been the book that had most ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... H.B., travelling salesman, from New York, aet. forty, single, a large, strongly-made man, a hard worker, given to excesses in sexual indulgence and alcohol for years. Syphilis was contracted fifteen years before the first traceable symptoms of ataxia, which had shown themselves after an attack of grippe, ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... mate. Her lashes hid her eyes, but her lip quivered and he saw it. The salesman was busy with Bob. Burns laid his hand for an instant on hers. She looked up, and a smile ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... years old, employed as commercial salesman by one of the largest manufacturing companies of its kind in the world, and command a good salary and the confidence of my employers. Since my operation at Dr. Brinkley's hospital I am now their free lance salesman, opening up new territory and making good money. Any doubting Thomas ...
— The Goat-gland Transplantation • Sydney B. Flower
... the habit of telephoning invitations for dinner and other diversions. Many people find telephone conversations more convenient than personal interviews, and it is every day displacing the stenographer and the traveling salesman. ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... sez he, "Cap'n Bardeen and his father owns more cows than any other Jonesvillians. If I want to be salesman agin in the Jonesville factory I mustn't make 'em mad, and they ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... been secured in the person of a young man by the name of Mr. Gordon, who cheerfully accompanied the lads on their outings, and attended many of their meetings. But being a traveling salesman, Mr. Gordon often had to be away from home ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... organization, too, while admirably adapted to arousing enthusiasm and to securing new chapters quickly, did not make for stability and permanence. The Grange deputy, as the organizer was termed, did not do enough of what the salesman calls "follow-up work." He went into a town, persuaded an influential farmer to go about with him in a house-to-house canvass, talked to the other farmers of the vicinity, stirred them up to interest and excitement, organized ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... as gem-expert and as salesman for Orontides, I have many friends in the Palace. I have carefully kept out of it myself and Orontides has acquiesced, for I told him I had good reason to avoid going in there, as you well know I have. If Marcia had seen me she would have recognized me and I should not have lived many ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... recovered the use of his limbs. He was not yet in condition to use a razor, which requires a very steady and delicate hand; but he was able to do a great deal of work about the house. He helped Leo, and became general salesman for all his merchandise. The affairs of the family had been improving from the very day that Andre was stricken down by his malady. The only misfortune over which they mourned was, that the young mechanic had been taken out ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... the sessions following his confinement he was indicted for privately stealing out of the shop of Charles Lawrence a corduroy coat value thirteen shillings. In respect of this robbery, the prosecutor deposed that Thomas Neeves, about seven in the evening, came into his shop, he being a salesman, and enquired for a dimity waistcoat; one accordingly was shown him, but they not at all agreeing in the price, Neeves on a sudden turned towards the door, and having with some earnestness cursed the prosecutor, snatched ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... garments. But, as he stood hesitant and uncertain within the narrow radius of the gas-lit window, one of the barkers found sufficient courage to invite him within. And, to the utter amazement of the alert salesman, Whitmore entered ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... age of fifteen he was placed in a country store as assistant salesman, or clerk. After a year's experience, his father purchased a small stock of goods for him, and set him up on his own account in partnership with his ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... but the salesman, with an unmoved countenance, went to the shelves and selected two volumes and laid them in silence on the counter. One was the "Life and Legends of Saint Patrick" with a picture in gilt of Brian Boru on the cover. The other was "Saint Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland," by William Bullen ...
— Saint Patrick - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, at the Commercial House, Jeffersonville, Indiana. Mr. Pierrepont has been promoted to the position of traveling salesman for the house, and has started out on ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... situation about a year ago, as book-keeper in a large establishment here, where he was much esteemed, on account of his health giving way so fast under the confinement. I believe he took another situation as salesman in a retail store, on a very small salary. Some one told me that Constance had been under the necessity of taking in sewing, to help to get a living—and all this time we had abundance all around us! I call myself, 'wretch,'—and ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... could make up these deficiencies. If he could find just the person that pleased him, he was ready to advance capital and credit to an amount somewhere within the neighbourhood of twenty thousand dollars. For some months he had been thinking of Jacob, who was a first-rate salesman, had a good address, and was believed by him to possess business habits eminently conducive to success. The fact that he had once failed was something of a drawback in his mind, but he had asked Jacob the reason of his ill-success, which was so plausibly explained, that he considered ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... perceive through the boy's very matter-of-fact account of himself. He then made an agreement for bed, use of fire, and kitchen, with his new friends at four shillings a week, and by the end of six months he was receiving a wage of fourteen shillings as salesman and had ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... before the ladies had completed their purchases. Dick, on entering, had given a little nod to Surajah, to let him know that it was really his father whom he had discovered, and had then tried to keep his attention upon his work as a salesman; and Surajah, as he handed him the goods, had given a furtive squeeze to his hand in token of ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... description of Russell, a real estate salesman who had been attentive to her daughter," continued Crown, "tallied with Barton's description of the man who had been on his car. I got his address from her. But say! She don't fall for the idea that Russell's guilty! She gave me to understand, in that snaky, frozen way of hers, ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... The delicate "baby blue" attracted him by its perishability, its suggestion of impossible refinements beyond the soilure and dust of his own grimy circumstances. Yet he pocketed his purchase as though it had been any common thing, not to show his pride in it before the patronizing salesman. ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... Eveley understood him to say, and from it she gathered that she might go at three, but that there was something perfectly terrible about the Doric that made it impossible for her to buy it, but of course she could not disappoint the salesman with the deep blue eyes, and so she ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... now giving a comfortable living to millions of men. Yet not one of these twenty existed in 1763. The district messenger, the telegraph operator, the typewriter, the stenographer, the bookkeeper, the canvasser, the salesman, the commercial traveler, the engineer, the car driver, the hackman, the conductor, the gripman, the brakeman, the electrician, the lineman, the elevator boy, and a host of others, follow trades and occupations which had no existence in the middle ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... of the trial, on the 1st of March, 1856, the sheep were all re-weighed, sent to the Edinburgh market, and sold same day, but in their separate lots. As I had no opportunity of getting the dead weights, I requested Mr. Swan, the salesman, to give his opinion on their respective qualities. This was to the effect that no difference existed in their market value, but that the sheep fed on turnips would turn out the best quality of mutton, with most profit for the butcher. Both lots were sold at the same price, viz., 52s. 6d. During ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... Marjorie, "they're really smart boys and girls. Tommy Miller does sound like a born salesman. Somehow I don't think you're going to have to ...
— Junior Achievement • William Lee
... part of the store, and applied to a salesman whose appearance he liked better. After some hesitation, Ben made choice of a suit of substantial warm cloth, a dark mixed sack-coat, vest of the same material, and a pair of pants of ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... came drawers and down came boxes, and very soon the small counter was littered with piles of raiment variously gaudy which Spike viewed and disparaged with such knowing judgment that the salesman's respect proportionately grew, and Mr. Ravenslee, lounging in the background, was forgotten quite, the while they chaffered after ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... he was made to occupy. Oh! that I could have whispered in his ear a few words of sympathy and comfort. He stood on the platform firm and erect, his eyes apparently fixed on the clock opposite. "Now, gentlemen, what do you offer for Ben?" said the Frenchified salesman; "a first-rate tailor—only twenty-one years of age." 700 dollars proved to be the estimated value of ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... few days later that Nancy Almar, driving past a well-known house-furnishing shop on her way home to tea, was surprised to observe her brother standing, with a salesman at his elbow, in trancelike contemplation of a small white enameled ice-box. With her customary decision, Nancy ordered her chauffeur to stop, and entering the shop by another door she stood close beside Hickson during his ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... "Yes, sir," said the salesman. "Would you like something for evening wear, or a plain kind for home use. Here is a very good family revolver, or would you like ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... clamor on himself, and to do the feat; being at his wits'-end for money. He draws out his Full-Power, which, as first Spiritual Kurfurst, he has the privilege to do; nominates (1516) one Tetzel for Chief Salesman, a Priest whose hardness of face, and shiftiness of head and hand, were known to him; and—here is one Hohenzollern that has a place in History! Poor man, it was by accident, and from extreme tightness ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... I'll tell you, Appleby; it ain't that you aren't a good salesman, but just now I'm—well, kind of reorganizing the business. I sort of feel the establishment ought to have a little more pep in it, and so— You see— But you leave your address and as soon as anything turns up I'll be mighty ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... misstatement is generally expected of a salesman. Advertisements of bargains, for example, have to be discounted by the wary shopper. "$10 value, reduced to $3.98," may mean something worth really $3. "Finest quality" may mean average quality; goods passed off as first-class may be shoddy or adulterated. ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... where you are until I get done." Her tone was perceptibly shriller. "And don't you dare call me pathetic; if you only knew—disgracing yourself in New York, with a family at home. It is too common and low and vulgar for words: like a travelling salesman. But I'll make you behave if I have ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... by the strong to get money are considered dishonest by a large class of men and women: exaggerated and lying advertisements, forestalling the markets, the acts and wiles of the professional salesman, misrepresenting goods and other methods that could never be catalogued because new ways are constantly coming to light. The logical end of all these indefinite and uncertain laws is to pass one statute providing that whoever does wrong shall be imprisoned, et cetera, et cetera. The law never ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... as a shot out of a gun. They got together on it, eight of the big bosses, called me in and told me flat-footed what we had to do," said the salesman. "Oh, I tell you, those fellows ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... dreams of leaving the farm for life in town and begins early to imitate the travelling salesman in dress and manner, so the school boy within the town hopes to be an office boy, and later a clerk or salesman, and looks upon work in the factory as the occupation of ignorant and unsuccessful men. The schools do so little really to interest ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... said the girl indifferently. The boy here promptly upset the counter; the rolled-up blanket which had deceitfully represented the desirable sheeting falling on the wagon floor. It apparently suggested a new idea to the former salesman. "I say! let's play 'damaged stock.' See, I'll tumble all the things down here right on top o' the others, and sell ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... too, and I began to think it the proper thing to try to be wicked myself. I was greatly attached to the two clerks, and they were my models in everything. One of them was also the bookkeeper of the establishment as well as a salesman. He dressed after the mode in trig, close-fitting suits; his pantaloons were like tights, and only kept on his legs by straps under his boots. He played and fooled with me in idle hours. The other clerk ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... and thousands of these genteel young gents find it any thing but an easy matter to find bread or situations half their time, in these crowded marts of men and merchandise. An advertisement in a New York or New Orleans paper, for a clerk or salesman, rarely fails to "turn up" a hundred needy and greedy applicants, in the course of a morning! In New York, where a vast number of these misguided young men are "manufactured," and continue to be manufactured by the regiment, for an already surfeited market, there are wretches ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... truth," protested Brown, with a mock air of injured innocence. "I'm a traveling salesman for the Haynes Sporting Goods Company, one of the biggest baseball outfitting companies in this part of the country. It's my business to travel and ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... valuer for a shire council, a female competent to manage the machine-room of a clothing factory, a retoucher capable of working in mezzo crayons, junior hands for Manchester and dress departments, two first-class cutters for order trade, a good shop salesman, a junior clerk, two clerks for wine and spirit store, a clerk proficient in Customs work, two clerks, (simply), a general manager for a carrying company, a grammar-school master with a degree, and one to ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... salesman type, I decided, after digging through his baggage. Number Two was occupied by an elderly couple who were loaded with tourist-type junk and four or five cameras. Number Three harbored a stopover truck driver and Number Four was almost overflowing ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... is reflected in the people's ordinary life. To the foreigner it continually appears that the public are the servants of the official, not the contrary, whether officialism takes the shape of a post-office clerk, a tramcar conductor, a shop salesman, a policeman, or a waiter. All these functionaries are the possessors of an authority which the citizen is expected to, and usually does, obey. The explanation of such a state of things is a little abstruse, but an attempt may be made ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... some books in a corner of the wagon. These he forthwith began to extol, with an amazing volubility of well-sounding words, and an ingenuity of praise that won him my heart, as being myself one of the most merciful of critics. Indeed, his stock required some considerable powers of commendation in the salesman; there were several ancient friends of mine, the novels of those happy days when my affections wavered between the Scottish Chiefs and Thomas Thumb; besides a few of later date, whose merits had not been acknowledged ...
— The Seven Vagabonds (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... wasn't a circumstance to other experiences. We had driven about three hundred horses and mules, and after disposing of over two thirds of them, my employer was compelled to return home, leaving me to dispose of the remainder. I was a fair salesman, and rather than carry the remnant of the herd with me, made headquarters with a man who owned a large cane-brake pasture. It was a convenient stopping-place, and the stock did well on the young cane. Every week I would drive to some distant town eighteen or twenty head, or as many ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... passing of the salesman, due to advertising, "The Saturday Evening Post" of Philadelphia, in its interesting series of articles on modern advertising exploits, recently told the story of how the N. H. Fairbanks Co. made a test of the relative value of advertising and salesmen. A belt of counties in ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... means to them. There is a young woman. She is a stenographer. She says, "Thanksgiving means a day away from the office. I am at the office every day except Sunday, and I do appreciate, now and then, a day that is really my own." Yonder is a traveling salesman. What does Thanksgiving mean to you? He says, "It means a day at home. Last year I spent one hundred and sixty-nine nights away from home. I have three children. I should like to see them every day. There are times when ...
— The Children's Six Minutes • Bruce S. Wright
... these months I have met with much poverty and sickness. One would almost think it would diminish at this season, but, on the contrary, it is rather worse. I met with a family who had been in the country but two months. The father was a salesman in Germany, and can get no employment in this country. They had nothing to eat in their house, but the Lord opened a way, so that something was provided for them. I read the Scriptures and prayed with them, and the wife expressed a longing to go to a German church. ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... any one of the young ladies they might happen to know, if any such were stirring abroad: crude young men, mostly, with a great many "Sirs" and "Ma'ams" in their speech, and with that style of address sometimes acquired in the retail business, as if the salesman were recommending himself to a customer,—"First-rate family article, Ma'am; warranted to wear a lifetime; just one yard and three quarters in this pattern, Ma'am; sha'n't I have the pleasure?" and so forth. If there had been ever so many of them, and if they had been ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... morocco or russia, there is a contrast similar to that between a woodland and a park. In the one case, at a distance, perhaps, of fifty or even a hundred years from the period of publication, we hold in our hand a volume precisely in the state in which it passed from that of the contemporary salesman to the contemporary buyer; and not a stain nor a finger-mark save the mellowing touch of time is upon it anywhere. Let us look at the description in a sale catalogue of such a rarity as Lamb's Poetry for Children, 1807, "in the original grey boards, with red labels," or a copy of the first edition ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... in making a continuous history. But as the purpose of this book is to assist the owner of tapestries to understand the story of his hangings and to enable the purchaser or collector to identify tapestries on his own knowledge instead of through the prejudiced statements of the salesman, it is useless to dwell long upon the fabrics that we can only see through exercise of the imagination or in disintegrated ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... who showed a wealth of imagination in describing the various topping shore jobs that they held at their disposal. Now it was a 'mine manager' they were looking for in our forecastle; to-morrow it would be a fruit salesman they wanted! They secured smiling Dutch John as a decoy, and set him up behind the bar of a Water Front saloon. There, when work was over for the day, his former shipmates foregathered, and John (fairly sober, considering) ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... been a traveling salesman, occupying positions of trust and responsibility. As is the universal trait among the larger element of my class, I contracted the indulgence of liquor. From its inception and social intercourse, it gradually developed until I became an irresistible slave to ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... favors for me, Mr. President you kin drop in along about supper time. Right now can't think of a thing you kin do for me. But I'll try ... I'll spend the afternoon thinkin' over all the things you might be able to do, and I'll try to pick one of 'em out.... I got to see a hardware salesman now. Afternoon ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... woman, ill clad and with red eyes, displayed before her a dingy assortment of ragged clothes, which were cheapened by other spare and red-eyed women, who held almost naked children by the hand. It was cold, and a bitter, keen east wind was searching every corner of London streets. The salesman Tony was come to deal with had a tolerable selection of old boots, very few of them pairs, some with pretty good upper-leathers, but with no soles worth speaking of; and others thickly cobbled and patched, but good enough to keep the feet dry, without presenting a ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton
... and larger chapel must be erected. To further this object, several boxes of goods had been forwarded to the Mission by Ladies Benevolent Societies in the east. They were accordingly opened out in the rooms of the vacant Parsonage, and, when not otherwise employed, I installed myself as a salesman of merchandise. It was not a little amusing to begin the erection of a church after this fashion, but this was not the only queer thing about the building of the ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... discovered. And when one had coaxed them out they went through the necessary gestures automatically, as if mournfully wondering that any one should care to buy. I remember once, at the Louvre, seeing the whole force of a "department," including the salesman I was trying to cajole into showing me some medicated gauze, desert their posts simultaneously to gather about a motor-cyclist in a muddy uniform who had dropped in to see his pals with tales from the front. But after ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... story against himself, illustrating these uncertainties of distant fame. Making a small purchase at a shop in England, not long after his second or third work had given currency to his name, he gave his address ("Mr. Irving, Number," etc.) for the parcel to be sent to his lodgings. The salesman's face brightened: "Is it possible," said he, "that I have the pleasure of serving Mr. Irving?" The question, and the manner of it, indicated profound respect and admiration. A modest and smiling acknowledgment was inevitable. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... been put in the Bastille, and upon the same diet as his salesman, stated the name of the Dutch printer who had published the pamphlet. They sought to extract more from him, and reduced his diet with such severity that ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... to the sofa. Jill sank down upon the pile of rugs and shook silently. Observing that we were unattended, another salesman was hurrying in our direction. Before he could ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... wouldn't have let him play on the floor so much, and rub his knees so white. He had an indulgent mother too, and plenty of halfpence, as the numerous smears of some sticky substance about the pockets, and just below the chin, which even the salesman's skill could not succeed in disguising, sufficiently betokened. They were decent people, but not overburdened with riches, or he would not have so far outgrown the suit when he passed into those ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... a psychiatrist?" The typist would have giggled, the office boy would have snorted, and every salesman on the force would have guffawed. Even Paul Chapman might have managed a wry smile. A real laugh had been beyond him for several months—ever since he asked Lucilla confidently, "Will you marry me?" and she answered, "I'm sorry, ...
— The Sound of Silence • Barbara Constant
... The Salesman said that he could tell at a glanse that I was not that sort, being calm in danger and not likly to chase a chicken into a fense corner and murder it, as some ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "Perhaps," said the salesman. "But I think you have a very unusual child here. He will go much farther than you may think. Why? Because he is sensitive and has an imagination that only needs the proper guidance. Too many children become mere bourgeois ciphers ...
— They Twinkled Like Jewels • Philip Jose Farmer
... Although you started in Brunford as a loom-maker, you've picked up all there is to know about manufacturing. And you're a bit of a scientist, too. Well, I don't know so much about that part of it, but I do know about the buying and selling. I've not been a salesman with Robinson's for nothing, and I worked in the mills as a boy. You've got two hundred pounds, you say; so have I, and a bit more. It's enough for us to start on, lad. We can hire a shed, and we can hire power, and we can hire looms, and we ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... student of human nature would have guessed him to be a traveling salesman, finely equipped with nerve and with confidence in his own goods. The average servant would have been vastly impressed with his air of self assurance; and would have admitted him to the house, without question. (The long-memoried warden of Auburn Prison ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... is sensitive and proud, the visitor can often be most helpful by simply showing his sympathy. "A travelling salesman who became addicted to drink lost a good situation through this habit. He had a wife and seven children, all the children being too young to earn anything. The wife was very brave and supported the family ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... these her presence in intellectual clubs was a simple and natural transition. She met and talked with interesting people, and now and then she got introduced to literary people. Once, in a book- store, she stood next to a gentleman leaning over the same counter, whom a salesman addressed by the name of a popular author, and she remained staring at him breathless till he left the place. When she bragged of the prodigious experience at home, her husband defied her to say how ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "there was the itinerant salesman whose s'fel threw a shoe. He knocked on the door of the hut of the nearest peasant and said...." What was said by the salesman was ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... a salesman comes to me shabbily dressed or flashily dressed, I can't give him a fair hearing," she said. "I may let him talk on, but I decide against him the instant I look at him. So I reasoned that a trim, pleasing appearance would be as valuable ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... The world isn't big enough for people like me to hide in, and the only thing I can't understand is why people like me are ever born. What's the use of it all, V.V., I can't see to save my life. The trouble all came from a fellow named Bellows, from home, a machinery salesman with T.B. Wicke Sons, you may know him, who dropped off the train here a week ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the tradesmen who are most numerous, and who give colour to the whole body. There is Macwait, the cheap baker, he contributes his quota weekly to the betting-shop: he has a strong desire to touch a twenty-pound stake. Whetcoles, the potato salesman, has given up a lucrative addition to his regular business—the purveying of oysters—for the sake of having more time to attend the office. Nimblecut, the hairdresser, has been endeavouring to raise his charge for shaving one ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... see that there is any use," replied Wollaston. "Maria's father must have been there by this time. This is a wild-goose chase anyhow." Wollaston's tone was quite vicious. He scowled superciliously at the salesman who stepped forward and asked if he wanted anything. "No, we ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... get you, Tooter. Everybody knows that you were born in obscurity, gradually worked your way up, and made all your money in the tea and spice business, so why in the deuce should they care if you take it into your head to be a salesman for your own teas at your ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... very young child can go whooping through the streets bumping pedestrians, running wildly, or walking from car to car twiggling each door handle and peering inside as if he were imitating a door-to-door salesman, occasionally making a minor excursion in one shop ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... himself dispatches his haul to London.... Dick Yeo once went up to Billingsgate and saw his own fish sold for about ten pounds. On his return to Seacombe, he received three pounds odd, and a letter from the salesman to say that there had been a sudden glut in the market. Fishermen boat-owners have an independence of character which makes it difficult for them to combine together effectively, as wage-servers do. They ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... This might be interesting, like a vacuum-cleaner salesman who had cleaned her drapes last week for free. And Kitty Kyle Battles Life wouldn't be on for ...
— Teething Ring • James Causey
... on landing was met by a respectable-looking native, who announced himself as the salesman of the station, putting out his right hand, and saying, "Ria-ora-na!" (Blessings on you.) The officers were then conducted to the market-house, where there were stores of bananas, yams, pumpkins, potatoes, cocoa-nuts, fowls, and various other articles. The purser of the frigate ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston
... factory going I wish you'd send a salesman to my head supply man," requested Mort Washer. "I'll buy them by the ton, and every guest who comes into one of my hotels will find a fresh comb in an aseptic wrapper by the side of ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... European horologist ever discovered the sequel which Mr. Heinrich has now worked out to perfection, overcoming the extremes, as stated above. With him is connected Mr. John P. Krugler for thirty years connected with the trade as salesman.—Adv. ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... came. I was dreadfully afraid he would have me; but he walked off. One or two more came who did not mean business. Then the hard-faced man came back again and offered twenty-three pounds. A very close bargain was being driven, for my salesman began to think he should not get all he asked, and must come down; but just then the gray-eyed man came back again. I could not help reaching out my head toward him. He stroked my face kindly. "Well, old chap," he ...
— Black Beauty, Young Folks' Edition • Anna Sewell
... Wings of Death' is not amusing," ventured Mrs. Leveret, whose manner of putting forth an opinion was like that of an obliging salesman with a variety of other styles to submit if his first ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... that afternoon of 'cuddy'-fishing after this famous take. Rob and Neil—the younger ones having had their share—rowed back to Erisaig; then Rob left the boat at the slip, and walked up to the office of the fish-salesman. ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black |
