.

According to Jarby's.
When Eliph' Hewlitt, sad at heart, departed from his disastrous interview with Miss Sally, he felt, for the first time in his life, a doubt as to the infallibility of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art.

Here was a book he had praised, sold and believed, and it had failed him.

Here was a book that was proclaimed, in the "Advice to Agents," to be so simply written and so easy of understanding that a child could follow its directions as well as a man, and it had only led him to defeat.

He had courted according to "Courtship"; he had tried to win the affections according to "How to Win" them, and instead of the "Yes" that Jarby's book led him to believe he would receive, he had been given a "No." This, then, was the book whose success he had made his life work! Caesar, when he saw Brutus draw his dagger, was wounded no more in spirit than Eliph' Hewlitt was now.
The world seemed to slip from beneath his feet; his firmest foundation seemed to have crumbled away; his best friend seemed to have turned false.