It closed almost as he reached it, and it would not open to his most vigorous knocking.
To know a person is in a house, and not to be able to reach that person, is annoying, and Eliph' had often had this happen to him.

The usual course was to go away and return again; returning a third or fourth time, or until the door at last opened; but Eliph' was not merely trying to sell a copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art this time.

He had no time to waste in the usual manner.

If he could not get into one house to sell a book, he could enter another house and sell a book, but when a man is after a certain heart he does not care to go to another house and take another heart.

Some men do it, but they are usually sorry afterwards.