Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1924 — page 90: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

By JOHN HOLDEN a4 cational expert to Homer Dobell, “is that you are too modest.” The timid young man who had come to New York to climb the ladder of success guiped painfully and tried to smile. He hitched forward in his chair, his mild blue eyes fixed upon his adviser, and shifted his crushed hat from his nervous right hand to his trembling left one. “ Then you—you don’t think I can ever get to be a traveling salesman?” Dobell queried plaintively. The urbane gentleman who made a good living by advising people whether they should become plumbers or portrait paint- ers, farm hands, or ambassadors, leaned back in his swivel chair. not handicapped by modesty. His tweed business suit, his diamond scarf pin and his mahogany office fixtures cried aloud’ that success was his. ‘“T did not advise you to embrace sales- HE trouble with you,” said the vo- Obviously he was. o manship,” he stated. “You are not the type that succeeds in that line. , You are inherently self-effacing; it is not in your nature to blow your own horn. Modesty, ~which is an overrated virtue at best, is en- tirely out of place in a vocation where per- sonal publicity counts for much. For ‘in- ‘stance, the wearing of a flashy suit or over- coat, which brings joy to a born salesman . because of the attention it brings him, would only embarrass you.” ‘You think, then, that I had better stick to clerical work?” Dobell questioned miser- ably. “Undoubtedly,” advised the career pilot. “ There your abnormally strong sense of caution and predilection-for trifling details is an asset, whereas in the selling profession both these qualities are handicaps because a salesman must tackle big situations in a big way and leave hampering details to smaller minded assistants.” Disappointment pulled down the corners 719 COMmiicloooe