ABSTRACT
While the Agency was situated in Boston, the visitors at the office were mainly New England men. This was especially the case so far as the statement has reference to visitors connected with the advertising department of newspapers. One day, however, there appeared two exceptions in the persons of Mr. Jenness J. Richardson, connected with the Democrat issued at Davenport, and a certain Mr. Barnhart, representing the Journal at Muscatine, Iowa. Both these gentlemen are living to-day (1905), prosperous specimens of the best examples of the men of the Middle West, Mr. Barnhart being a member of the type founding firm of Barnhart Brothers & Spindler and Mr. Richardson a retired business man, a leading capitalist of that Davenport which, in Napoleonic phrase, he loved so well. He was at this time a rather raw-boned specimen of athletic manhood, who impressed people at first sight as being from the rural districts. In time I came to believe that he cultivated the manner and succeeded in making it profitable. No advertiser, big or little, failed to receive a visit from him. A rebuff rolled off him like water from a duck’s back. He was in no hurry, he could wait, would much rather wait than call again. If the order was a small one he preferred it to none. If the man had no money there was no objection to taking payment in goods. Half cash and half goods would do very well indeed. He would be glad to make a hundred dollars, but would not turn down an opportunity to make only a single cent. It used to be said that if there was a stove in the office that Richardson could stand by and warm his mittened hands, holding them up one on each side of the stove pipe, no one was ever able under such conditions to refuse him the order for the precise space, position, price and terms of payment suggested by this most ingenious canvasser that ever came from the banks of the Mississippi.
