Sitting in chairs before the New Leland House they talked
to him of the city and of the money to be made there.
"It is the place for a live young man," they said.
Sam had a talent for drawing people into talk of themselves and of their
affairs and began to cultivate travelling men. From them, he got into his
nostrils a whiff of the city and, listening to them, he saw the great ways
filled with hurrying people, the tall buildings touching the sky, the men
running about intent upon money-making, and the clerks going on year after
year on small salaries getting nowhere, a part of, and yet not
understanding, the impulses and motives of the enterprises that supported
them.
In this picture Sam thought he saw a place for himself. He conceived of
life in the city as a great game in which he believed he could play a
sterling part. Had he not in Caxton brought something out of nothing, had
he not systematised and monopolised the selling of papers, had he not
introduced the vending of popcorn and peanuts from baskets to the Saturday
night crowds? Already boys went out in his employ, already the totals in
the bank book had crept to more than seven hundred dollars. He felt within
him a glow of pride at the thought of what he had done and would do.
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