I, on the other hand, had a downright perverted interest in basketball and tennis, those two shadowy sports that no really successful businessman ever admits enthusiasm for. One's kid stuff and the other's somehow not as American as it should be. So it was natural, I suppose, that within the first hour of my employment there Mr. Peters should shout merrily at me the national test for strangers: "Well, my boy, what do you think of the Braves after yesterday!" I thought first of an uprising but that wasn't likely because Indians aren't forced to listen to baseball talk. So I said the first noncommittal thing to pop into my mind, "Great! They'll represent us in the next Olympics yet!" He looked at me strangly and went to answer the phone. Later I caught him looking my way as if he'd discovered me while biting into an old apple.

Except for a few pep-talks to the assembled salesmen, Pharoh Peters said nothing to me for the next few days. Then he cornered one of the yesier boys near my desk and thundered a few opinions on men who weren't red-blooded enough to be enthralled with America's Number One Sport-which baseball isn't, by the way. He reflected extensively on the lack of virility of men who don't know the difference between a bunt and a punt-forgetting the female fans who often make louder fools of themselves at a game than any two men. And he ended with the wildly irrelevant information that, "I can tell one of these here nancy boys a mile off. Yes sir! I don't even have to know how he stands on baseball. All I have to do is look at him for two seconds and I know. I've trained myself to do that because I'll not have a filthy pervert around my office rubbing any of it off on me!" He flicked the smallest glance in my direction and started off as if he'd just accomplished great things at the polls. Now I told you I didn't want the job in the first place, so it was at this juncture that I said, "Peters, come here!" He stopped, looked stupefied and darned if he didn't obey to the extent of returning to the middle of the office. I continued: "All right, if you want me to shout what I have to say. I've been here four days and I've outsold you and all the other salesmen put together. This is in spite of the fact that I'm a confirmed pansy who despises baseball fans because they're snobs and hate exercise. If you want me to stay on and make you rich, lay off nancy boys, and calling me by my last name. I'm going out for coffee. Have your decision ready when I return."

To some businessmen, it's not dishonorable to crawl for cash. Yet I've never heard such a regal apology as King Peter's. I felt like paying a fine when he'd finished. It went to the effect that he knew I wasn't a pansy because he could tell one a mile off, and no man could have my deep voice, interest in basketball and tennis and virile charm and be one, and no man with my courage, guts and magnificent sales ability could ever be one however unmarried he might be and, now that we'd mentioned it, I did plan on getting married someday, didn't I?

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