IN DEVONSHIRE 265 



the moment I did not quite grasp what he meant 

 was to be offensive about the T.G., and, though 

 I am a free and accepted craftsman in a lot of 

 travelling guilds, I was unable for a while to 

 understand how I came to be not only damned 

 but a T.G. It so happened that at the Lockyer 

 I foregfathered with an old man on the road. 

 Said commercial gentleman had strayed — as do 

 so many at Plymouth — from his own hotel to dine 

 at the Lockyer, and thanks to him I found correc- 

 tion. '' He called you a T.G., did he?" says he, 

 joining in the palaver after the old-fashioned 

 smoking-room style. *' He did," says I. ''Well, 

 then," says he, " I will tell you what he meant. 

 He affected to take you for a commercial traveller, 

 and, to annoy you, called you a T.G., which is a 

 Travelling Gent, as contrasted with a Travelling 

 Commercial Gentleman." 



As to the ''T.G.," I only wish I was the right 

 sort of *' travellinof o-ent." — the commercial traveller 

 who finds or makes things pleasant. That we 

 have no better friends than the commercial 

 travellers, I know from practical experience. As 

 it is my lot to knock about a good deal, I do get 

 rather envious now and then of brethren com- 

 mercially travelling, and would like to swop with 

 them. There are, for instance, gentlemen repre- 

 senting houses who run their travellers on quite 

 old-fashioned lines, such as Huntley and Palmer, 

 and Peek, Frean, and Co. These firms' repre- 

 sentatives seem to me much to be envied. Some- 

 times I am almost persuaded to go in and be a 

 ''commercial." If anyone is a travelling gentle- 

 man, I am that man. You see I am always 

 cutting about the country. As a cutter-about, 

 nothing pleases me better than to happen on a 



