He leaned forward to put his elbows upon the back of her seat and proceeded to make himself volubly agreeable.
"Yes, that is a great resort for Chicago people.The hotels are swell.You are not familiar with this part of the country, are you?"
"Oh, yes, I am," answered Carrie."That is, I live at Columbia City.I have never been through here, though."
"And so this is your first visit to Chicago," he observed.
All the time she was conscious of certain features out of the side of her eye.Flush, colourful cheeks, a light moustache, a grey fedora hat.She now turned and looked upon him in full, the instincts of self-protection and coquetry mingling confusedly in her brain.
"I didn't say that," she said.
"Oh," he answered, in a very pleasing way and with an assumed air of mistake, "I thought you did."
Here was a type of the travelling canvasser for a manufacturing house--a class which at that time was first being dubbed by the slang of the day "drummers." He came within the meaning of a still newer term, which had sprung into general use among Americans in 1880, and which concisely expressed the thought of one whose dress or manners are calculated to elicit the admiration of susceptible young women--a "masher." His suit was of a striped and crossed pattern of brown wool, new at that time, but since become familiar as a business suit.The low crotch of the vest revealed a stiff shirt bosom of white and pink stripes.