It was late afternoon, and the driver of the car, a middle-aged traveling salesman who shall here be known as Mr. Bell, was tired.

He was reading the advertising literature when a plump, middle-aged salesman came up.

It can also be somewhat amusing, as when a middle-aged salesman pulls out a card of fabric and holds it up to his leg, chorus-girl style, to see how it would drape as a skirt.

"This could be $90,000," said Mr. McDonough, a Brooks Brothers-attired middle-aged salesman from Sopher Real Estate.

It is breakfast time in the home of Henry Gow, a downtrodden, middle-aged salesman.

Who can resist the ridiculous spectacle of a bearded, middle-aged salesman in drag waving his chubby arms and clomping around like the world's clumsiest ballerina?

John Lithgow is Ben Cluett, a middle-aged, divorced salesman whose Atlanta-based company makes industrial foam.

Countryside Stoves in Red Hook, N.Y., was empty on the August afternoon I visited, save for a middle-aged salesman and dozens of stoves.

Ray Kroc was a two-bit, middle-aged, milkshake-machine salesman when he founded a little company called McDonald's.

Not that Jim Noonan, a middle-aged salesman, isn't proud of his boy.