He had been selling Jarby's for many years.

He had seen the "talking feature" of the colored plates of the Civil War pass, and had seen them succeeded by colored plates of the Franco-Prussian War, and had seen these make way for colored plates of one war after another until the present plates of the Spanish War appeared, and through all these changes in the last chapter he had studied the book until he knew its contents as well as he knew his "two--times--two." He could recite the book forward or backward, read it upside down--as a book agent has to read a book when it is in a customer's lap--or sideways, and could turn promptly to nearly any word in it without hesitation.

The more he studied it the more he loved it and admired it and believed in it.

It was his whole literature, and he found it to be sufficient.

If he saw a thing in Jarby's he knew it was so, and if it was not in Jarby's it was not worth knowing.