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 the publishing house, and sent out on yellow-tinted paper for the guidance of agents in the field. He was his own authority, and amazingly sufficient unto his day. He transcended all bounds of book agents; he brought imagination into a business that had not known it before his time.

There was nobody in a publishing office anywhere who could advise, direct or instruct that man in ways for bringing his books before the public ear—the public eye would engage them only after purchasing—or add one word that he had not thought of and employed. Before him other book agents were only as dumb beginners; beyond him there was nothing. In the business of being a book agent, he was supreme.

Louise knew she hadn't any claim on the territory this capably voluble man had invaded. Under the terms of her contract with the general agent she was obliged to report every two weeks, a certain number of lapses in this particular amounting to forfeiture of territory exclusively assigned. She never had made any report. This stranger was welcome to the whole world. If he could prosper in it, as he appeared to have done, Kansas was his by the sovereignty of genius. Louise drew a little nearer, to hear more of his methods, and watch the result.

Nobody in that eager crowd of McPacken's best appeared to remember that Louise Gardner had come to town on a certain hot day two months before, offering that same priceless treasure in her appealing, timid, unconvincing way. There was no appeal in this man's