half of 'em sold with the buyers phoning in every day bawling for deliveries. And so they went out."
At this point again, Mr. Snelgrove paused, feelingly.
"Each one with my personal guarantee. I used to tie a special calling card around the radiator cap reading, 'Consider my name embossed below the manufacturer's on this car. I personally stand back of it. Irving Eugene Snelgrove.' Gosh, how personal I used to be. And how free with printed matter. I remember when I was scheming up those words, I called to my cashier: 'Say, Jim, what'll those cards cost?' 'Oh, 'bout 'leven dollars,' he yelled back. Fifty thousand and eleven would be closer to it when, 'bout two months later, the factory went broke with half the cars on my hands and the rest coming back to me as fast as they could get tows to pull 'em in.
"I changed my middle name from Eugene to Experience that summer. Well, boy, that's all right; all over now; nothing but the benefit of it left. Nothing like going broke—good and absolutely broke once—to make a sound business man. We'll get dividends on that experience to my dying day."
Snelgrove looked about forty-five but probably was older. He was a wiry, energetic philosopher with jet black hair which he dyed wherever it showed a streak of gray. Apparently—Snelgrove never was definite about his youth—he had started to shift for himself at an early date and in a most mixed company; for middle-aged, down and out ex-prize fighters, retired and obese jockeys, base-ball players who were great in
