Frank H. Spearman

“ It is one of our rules never to try to force a machine on anybody, Mrs. Henry. Sullivan, give me a lift here, please. Ladies, I am sorry."
"Humph!"
"I will leave my card."
"You needn't mind."
"I don't. It's all right; take two. And, by the way, here's a postal. Come, Sullivan."
"Did you ever see such cheek in all your born days?" cried Belle, as the two men toiled down the stairs with the big machine. But of course Jessie never had, coming from Canada, and so averred.
Twice, thereafter, Mr. Stevens called. Mrs. Henry and Belle were out each time. It was poor Jessie who had to meet him. ”

“ Take your machine away."
"It wouldn't make a particle of difference having promised Mr. Stevens. He will get credit for the sale just the same. Say fifteen dollars for your machine, Mrs. Henry, and it brings this elegant, curly maple, extension-front-end, really swell machine—why," declared Laycock, overcome with the absurdity of his own proposal, "it brings it down to fifty dollars."
"Mama doesn't want any machine," snapped Belle, for Mrs. Henry seemed to be failing.
"But have you ever run our machine, Miss?" protested Mr. Laycock. "Don't condemn it without having seen it," he urged. ”

“ Just the very day you miss a payment on the day it's due, in they come and take your machine. If you're downtown they break into your flat—that's what they do—I know 'em." And Mrs. Henry mashed the potatoes as if she had a sewing-machine agent in the colander. "You'll never do for this country, Jessie," she declared oracularly. The little Canadian girl looked distressed, yet helpless. She seemed to realize her deficiencies. "You will let everybody run over you, that's the trouble. There's somebody at the door now," exclaimed her aunt as the bell rang rather undecidedly. ”