“And now,” he continued, “I’m
going to tell you in a few words what the proposition
is that’s going to make those of you who
go into it in the right spirit. Simply put, it’s
this: ‘Heart Talks’ have been incorporated
as a company. We’re going to put these little
pamphlets into the hands of every big business organization,
every salesman, and every man who knows—I
don’t say ‘thinks,’ I say ’knows’—that
he can sell! We are offering some of the stock
of the ‘Heart Talks’ concern upon the
market, and in order that the distribution may be as
wide as possible, and in order also that we can furnish
a living, concrete, flesh-and-blood example of what
salesmanship is, or rather what it may be, we’re
going to give those of you who are the real thing a
chance to sell that stock. Now, I don’t
care what you’ve tried to sell before or how
you’ve tried to sell it. It don’t
matter how old you are or how young you are.
I only want to know two things—first, do
you want success, and, second, will you work
for it?
“My name is Sammy Carleton. Not ‘Mr.’
Carleton, but just plain Sammy. I’m a regular
no-nonsense man with no fancy frills about me.
I want you to call me Sammy.
“Now this is all I’m going to say to you
to-day. To-morrow I want those of you who have
thought it over and have read the copy of ‘Heart
Talks’ which will be given to you at the door,
to come back to this same room at this same time,
then we’ll, go into the proposition further and
I’ll explain to you what I’ve found the
principles of success to be. I’m going
to make you feel that you and you
and you can sell!”
Mr. Carleton’s voice echoed for a moment through
the hall and then died away. To the stamping
of many feet Anthony was pushed and jostled with the
crowd out of the room.
FURTHER ADVENTURES WITH “HEART TALKS”
With an accompaniment of ironic laughter Anthony told
Gloria the story of his commercial adventure.
But she listened without amusement.
“You’re going to give up again?”
she demanded coldly.
“Why—you don’t expect me to—”
“I never expected anything of you.”
He hesitated.
“Well—I can’t see the slightest
benefit in laughing myself sick over this sort of
affair. If there’s anything older than the
old story, it’s the new twist.”
It required an astonishing amount of moral energy
on Gloria’s part to intimidate him into returning,
and when he reported next day, somewhat depressed
from his perusal of the senile bromides skittishly
set forth in “Heart Talks on Ambition,”
he found only fifty of the original three hundred
awaiting the appearance of the vital and compelling
Sammy Carleton. Mr. Carleton’s powers of
vitality and compulsion were this time exercised in
elucidating that magnificent piece of speculation—how
to sell. It seemed that the approved method was
