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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Man of Samples, by Wm. H. Maher
+
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+Title: A Man of Samples
+
+Author: Wm. H. Maher
+
+Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6132]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on November 17, 2002]
+[Date last updated: January 10, 2004]
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+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MAN OF SAMPLES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ben Byer, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+A MAN OF SAMPLES
+
+SOMETHING ABOUT THE MEN HE MET
+
+"ON THE ROAD"
+
+BY WM. H. MAHER
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+"ON THE ROAD TO RICHES"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"When do you start, Tom?"
+
+"At midnight."
+
+"Well, good-by; sock it to 'em; send us in some fat orders."
+
+"I'll do it, or die; good-by."
+
+And then I sat down to think it all over. Our traveling man was off on
+a wedding tour, and I had agreed to take his place for this one trip.
+As the hour drew near for me to start, my courage proportionately
+sank, until I now heartily wished that I had never consented to go.
+What if I failed? I had been stock clerk and house salesman for three
+years; I had been successful; my position was a good one, and one that
+would grow better; there was nothing to be made by success on the
+road, as I had no intention of continuing there, and failure might be
+the means of making my place in the house less secure. What an
+infernal fool I was! If there had been any way under heaven for me to
+get out of it I would have hailed the opening with delight. I would
+have blessed any accident that would have been the means of sending me
+to bed for a week or two, and I would have taken the small-pox
+thankfully. But there was no release. Like an ass, as I was, I had
+agreed to take Mallon's trip, and I must go ahead if it made or unmade
+me.
+
+I ate my supper with a heavy heart, bade my landlady and her daughters
+a solemn good-by, then went to the theater to forget my sorrows. At
+midnight I was checking my sample-trunk for Albany, and persuading the
+baggagemaster that 218 pounds were exactly 120. I succeeded; but it
+took three ten-cent cigars to do it.
+
+The reason I call the town Albany is because that is not its name, and
+I may as well say here that as I write about actual incidents I don't
+propose to "lay myself liable" by giving the name of any town or any
+dealer. If I call him Smith it will naturally follow that he was not
+Smith.
+
+If Albany had been a hundred or more miles away I would have taken a
+berth in the sleeper, but we were due there at 2 o'clock, so I dozed
+and nodded and swore to myself during the two hours' ride. I wanted to
+get there, but I dreaded it, too. Stories I had heard traveling men
+tell about poor beds, mean men, dirty food, and unprincipled
+competitors all came back to me in a distorted fashion, and if I
+didn't have a nightmare I must have experienced a slight touch of
+delirium tremens.
+
+"How much of a town is Albany?" I asked the conductor.
+
+"No town at all; just a crossing."
+
+"No hotel there?"
+
+"Oh, yes; they call it a hotel."
+
+This was exactly what I expected. Probably no one would be up and I
+could walk around the town for the next four hours. What an idiot I
+was! By thunder, I would break my leg or my arm the first thing I did
+and get out of this foolish--
+
+"Albany!"
+
+What, so soon! Those were the two shortest hours I had ever known.
+
+No lights anywhere; no one about; nothing but--
+
+"Hotel, sir?"
+
+Good; here was a ray of comfort. "Hotel? Well, I should say so. Where
+is your light?"
+
+"Here it is." And a lantern came around a corner as the train dashed
+off on its way.
+
+"Don't mind your trunk; that will be taken care of and I'll get it in
+the morning. Here, Dan, lead the way,"
+
+We walked a square or two and went into a neat appearing office. Bed?
+Yes, I might as well get a few hours' sleep. And I was given a very
+comfortable room. I lay in bed trying to recall our customer's name,
+and preparing my speech of introduction when--. Some one was rapping
+at the door. What's up? Breakfast! What, breakfast already? Why, I
+hadn't thought I was asleep at all.
+
+As I looked over the register, after breakfast, dreading to start out,
+I asked the clerk;
+
+"Been any gun men here lately?"
+
+"None since last week. Layton was here from Pittsburg on the 22d."
+
+"Did he sell anything?"
+
+"I think he did sell Cutter a small bill"
+
+"How many stores are there here?"
+
+"Three that sell guns. Are you in the gun business!"
+
+"Yes. I am from Pittsburg."
+
+I hung back as long as I dared; found out all about the trains; picked
+up facts and fancies about the merchants; got my cards and price-book
+handy; stuck four revolvers (samples) in my pockets; pulled my hat
+down solidly on my head, and started out. And every step I took I,
+figuratively, kicked myself for being there, and for being a blasted
+fool generally. "JOHN O. JORDAN, GUNS AND REVOLVERS."
+
+This was the legend that attracted my attention, and toward it I took
+my way. I stopped at the window long enough to take a hasty inventory
+of its contents, and from it I sized up my man. There were some goods
+there that came from our store; this cheered me, I took courage,
+walked in, and handed Mr. Jordan my card.
+
+"We have done some business with you," I said, in my blandest tones,
+"and Mr. Mallon always spoke pleasantly of you [this was a random
+shot]; he has taken a wife unto himself, and I am making his trip."
+
+"Why the devil don't you send me the goods I ordered last time from
+him? Where are those British bull-dogs? Did he sell them too low, or
+is my credit poor?"
+
+Phew! There it was. I must first close up an old sore before I could
+do anything else. I might have known it would be just so, but I was
+such a pig-headed fool I hadn't thought of this.
+
+"Tell me all about it, Mr. Jordan;" and he told it, with fire in his
+eye. But he felt better for having told it. I knew nothing of it till
+now, but I took out my book and said:
+
+"Mr. Jordan, the goods will come now. You may depend upon it. How many
+bull-dogs do you want?"
+
+"I don't want any. I got some of Layton. The house can't fool me
+again."
+
+I sat down on the counter and gave him fourteen reasons for his order
+not having been filled (I hope some of them were true), and then I
+pulled out a "Pet" revolver and asked him if seventy-five cents was
+not mighty low for that.
+
+He admitted that it was, but he had bought of Layton five cents lower.
+Then I explained wherein Layton's was ten cents poorer than mine (I
+hadn't seen his), and why he ought to give mine the preference. What
+had he paid for 32-caliber?
+
+"One twenty-five."
+
+I drew out mine at $1.20, and I convinced him that mine was a better
+pistol than his, although he said he had already more than he ought to
+have and he would not buy more. Then I placed an automatic ejector
+under his eyes, threw out the shells, cocked it and snapped it, and
+explained how, though it cost us $6.70, I was going to sell him some
+at $6.
+
+"No, you ain't," said he, "I've got two on hand and can't give them
+away."
+
+By this time it struck me I was making but little headway and was
+wasting my breath in praising goods he already had, so I concluded the
+best plan to go on was to see what he had, and govern myself
+accordingly. He seemed to have everything, confound him! There was
+nothing he had not bought in the thirty days, and I began to think I
+could use my time better somewhere else, when a man came in to buy a
+gun, and I stepped aside to watch the subsequent proceedings.
+
+The story told by that retailer about those guns would have made a dog
+howl, if it were not for the fact that he believed every word of it.
+The farmer wanted a good muzzle loader, but wanted it choke-bored! The
+retailer brought down seven different guns, all of them choke-bored!
+and expatiated upon their cheapness and good qualities. Some reference
+was made to me, as being a gun man, and I was drawn into the
+conversation. I explained the merits of guns to that farmer in a way
+that pleased him mightily. I could see that, but he finally said he
+didn't intend to buy a gun that day, but would some time in the fall,
+and he passed calmly out.
+
+I looked at Mr. Jordan, and he looked at me. "Are you mad?" I asked.
+
+"No; I'm used to it."
+
+"Then try a cigar."
+
+As we smoked and discussed mean customers, I put in some good licks
+for my house, and by and by heard Jordan say:
+
+"I lied to you about those bull-dogs; I didn't buy any of Layton; you
+may send me six."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+When Mr. Jordan gave me the order for six "bull-dog" revolvers, I felt
+that I had made a conquest; I went carefully through my list, adding
+something here and there, until I had made a very pretty bill with
+him. So, although he met me as if he wanted to punch me in the head,
+we parted on the best of terms. Where should I go next? A sign farther
+down the street said "Hardware," so I started down that way.
+
+A man who carries a mixed stock is easier to sell goods to than is the
+man who makes a specialty of one line. In the house we always had a
+closer price for the dealer who made guns a specialty than for the
+hardware man who kept a few guns and revolvers as a small branch of
+his stock.
+
+"John Topoff" was the name over the door, so I went in, carefully
+noticing the stock, the way it was arranged, and the amount, in order
+to get some idea of the kind of man the owner was.
+
+"Is Mr. Topoff in?" I asked a young man who was blacking stoves and
+who I was sure was not the man I wanted.
+
+"Naw," he said, as he brushed away.
+
+"Will he be in soon?"
+
+"Naw, he's dead. There's Mr. Tucker, he's the boss."
+
+The young man spoke as if answering the questions about Mr. Topoff had
+become a burden to him, and if that honest hardware man had been dead
+long I didn't blame the boy for getting tired of him.
+
+Mr. Tucker had been studiously keeping his back toward me, as if I was
+to expect no encouragement from him, but he turned when I spoke his
+name and I introduced myself.
+
+"Don't need anything in your line," said he, as if he wished I would
+accept that as a final verdict and get out.
+
+What would you have done, respected reader, if you had been in my
+place? I would gladly have said "good-day," and gone at once if it
+were not for the fact that my present business was to get orders, and
+the only way to secure them was to work for them. So I ignored Mr.
+Tucker's ill-timed remark and proceeded to be sociable.
+
+I explained as pleasantly as I could why it was our house was sending
+out a new man. I got him interested enough to ask a question or two,
+which was a point gained, and finally I came round to his stock, but I
+carefully ignored guns and talked of nails; something I knew nothing
+about.
+
+Don't you know you can pay no one a higher compliment than to place
+him in the position of a teacher to you? I picked that idea up
+somewhere, and I put it in practice by asking Mr. Tucker for
+information as to hardware and hardware houses. He was soon talking
+warmly and as if he was enjoying himself, and I was wondering when
+would be a good time to get guns started, when a little boy came to
+the door and shouted: "Pa! ma wants you to come home a minute, just as
+soon as you can!"
+
+He started off without a word, and I proceeded to get acquainted with
+the young man who said "Naw!"
+
+Of all creatures on the face of the earth the average clerk is the
+easiest to pump. The fact that a man is from a wholesale house seems
+to be sufficient guarantee that he may safely be told anything
+regarding prices, and where goods came from. The moment Tucker went
+out the door Bob stopped his work, and for fifteen minutes he kept his
+tongue wagging about the cost of goods and all he knew about them. He
+was so incautious that I soon learned his cost mark, and then did not
+need to ask cost afterward.
+
+How did I do it? Bless you! Every traveling man does it in spite of
+himself. For instance, I pick up a box and notice it is marked L.X.K.,
+and I ask the clerk, while I look at the revolver, What did this cost?
+
+He turns the box up to see the mark, and answers, $2.25.
+
+This may be the truth, or may not. If it is, "L" is 2 and "K" is 5,
+and "X" means "repeat." So by and by I find a box marked B.L.K., and I
+ask the cost of that. He answers, $1.25. I am now sure that B is 1, L
+is 2 and K is 5, and I can easily guess that A and C are 3 and 4. By
+finding boxes with other letters on, and learning from the boy what
+the mark is, I soon have "Black horse" as the cost mark in that store.
+I make a note of this in my trip book so that I can use it when I am
+here again, or when our other man is here.
+
+My way now is tolerably smooth. If he really needs goods the merchant
+will be willing to order at prices paid before; if he thinks he does
+not need anything I may tempt him by quoting prices a little under
+what he paid. In either case I am in good shape to make a fight for an
+order; thanks to the clerk's loose tongue and lack of sense.
+
+A customer comes in and wants a file. I listen to the conversation,
+trying to get hold of any hint that may be useful to me by and by.
+Another man wants a box of cartridges. My ears are wide open now.
+
+"Have you the 'U.S.'?"
+
+"U.S.--U.S. What do you mean?" asks the clerk.
+
+"I want the kind with U.S. on the end."
+
+"What good is that?"
+
+"Good to go. I like that kind. Have you got them?"
+
+"I don't know; yes; no, they ain't either! They're U.M.C."
+
+"Don't want 'em!"
+
+Now I was temporarily selling the U.S. cartridge, so I made a note of
+what the man said, to be used on Tucker, but I took up the
+conversation and convinced the customer that the U.M.C. make of
+cartridges was good; he finally bought a box and went off apparently
+satisfied.
+
+Just then Tucker came in.
+
+I made some laughing allusion to pig-headed customers, and the clerk
+at once opened up on the "fool" who thought one cartridge was better
+than another. When the young man was back at his stove I started out
+to sell Tucker a bill. He was backward about buying; didn't know our
+house; always bought of Simmons; did not like to have so many bills;
+always got favors from Simmons, and despised our city on general
+principles.
+
+I agreed with him on every point, but (Oh! these "buts") I also wanted
+an order. I took out my bull-dog revolver that was selling at $2.85;
+he had none like it in stock; it was the leading pistol, retailing
+readily at $4 to $5, according to locality. "I want to send you a few
+of these at a special net price," said I; "the regular price is $3; I
+will sell you at $2.85." I said this as if I was making him a present
+of a gold watch. "I wouldn't have the d--n things as a gift," said he.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+When a man has been on the road a year or two he is never disappointed
+because a dealer refuses to buy something he was sure he was going to
+sell him. He is prepared for "No" on all occasions rather than for
+"Yes." But a man is terribly disappointed on his first trip every time
+he starts out to sell a particular article and does not meet with
+success. I was sure Tucker would give me an order for some bull-dog
+revolvers, but in answer to my low price he had said he wouldn't take
+them as a gift!
+
+I would have been very glad to go straight home and let Tucker get
+along without bull-dogs, but my silly head had brought me into this
+business and I must keep on. Probably he saw I was a good deal
+disappointed, for he added, in a rather kindly tone, "Every pistol of
+that kind I have ever sold came back on my hands for repairs, and I
+swore I'd never buy another."
+
+"You are making a mistake," said I. "When the double action first came
+out they did get out of order easily, and manufacturers were obliged
+to take back broken ones and replace them at great expense to
+themselves. In self-defense they were obliged to make them better, and
+they are just as reliable as any other to-day."
+
+"Well, I don't want any."
+
+"All right, we will pass it. But I wondered what one of your
+competitors meant when he said he had the pistol trade; now I
+understand."
+
+"Does he sell these?"
+
+"Yes, he had some from us not long ago, and gave me an order for more
+to-day."
+
+"What's the best you can do on them?"
+
+How many times a day does every traveling man see men act as Tucker
+did? Here was a line of goods he was cocksure he did not want, but the
+moment he heard that his competitor had a trade on them he began to
+feel that he must have some. Seven-eighths of the goods sold are sold
+in this way. Very few men do business on their own judgment. Their
+competitors make their prices, select their styles, and force them to
+carry certain stock. The drummer's best card is always: This is
+selling like fire; Smith took a gross, Brown half a gross, Jones three
+dozen, and you will miss it if you do not try a few. Such dealers
+always have the larger part of their capital locked up in goods they
+bought because others had bought the same goods.
+
+I repeated my price to Tucker, and he told me to send him a few. "By
+the way," said he, "what are your terms?"
+
+"Sixty days."
+
+"Does your house draw the day a bill falls due?"
+
+"No; the house is slow about drawing upon customers, and they always
+give ten days' notice before making draft."
+
+"Well, I don't like to be drawn on. The house that draws on me can't
+sell me again. I can't draw on my trade, and I'm devilish glad to get
+my money in six months, but you fellows in the city expect a man to
+come to the exact minute. I don't want any drawing on me."
+
+It was an excellent place to have delivered a lecture on the beauties
+of prompt payments. I could have told Brother Tucker that if he did
+not see his way clear to pay his bill when due he should not buy it,
+and if his customers did not pay promptly he should dun them harder or
+keep his goods. But the traveling man is not sent out to inculcate
+business morals, and he is too anxious to sell a bill to run any risks
+by disagreeing with a buyer. I did what all others would have done in
+my place. I assured Mr. Tucker I would be as easy with him regarding
+payments as any house in the world would dare be, and that point
+safely out of the way, I sold him several items quite smoothly. We
+came to guns.
+
+"What is Parker's worth?"
+
+"Twenty-five per cent, off factory list."
+
+"What! Why, here's a quotation from Cincinnati of 25 and 10!"
+
+"Let me see it, please. I have not heard of any such figures."
+
+"Bob, where is that list of Reachum's?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"D--n it, you had it."
+
+"Then it must be in the drawer."
+
+Tucker emptied the drawer, looked through a pile of papers, but could
+not find the circular he was looking for He was annoyed by it, and I
+was sorry.
+
+"Well, let it go," said he, "but that was the price."
+
+"There must be a mistake somewhere," said I, "for the goods cost that
+at the factory in largest lots."
+
+"There was no mistake," he said sharply; "I know what I am talking
+about. The discount offered was 25 and 10."
+
+I hastened to assure him that I had not meant that he was mistaken,
+but that Reachum must have made a mistake.
+
+"That's no concern of mine," said he, "and I rather think that Reachum
+is a man who knows his business as well as any of you. If you are
+higher than he is on guns you probably are on other goods. I guess you
+had better cancel that order."
+
+Here was a pretty how-do-you-do! How was I to get out of this box? I
+confess I was in great doubts as to what to do or say. I dared not
+sell Parker's guns at any such price, yet the man would cancel the
+order and probably always have a grudge against the house unless I
+sold him now. I could not believe that Reachum had made this price,
+and yet there was no telling what that house might or might not do.
+
+"How many Parker guns do you want?" I asked.
+
+"I don't want any. I only asked because it is a leading thing, and if
+a house is not low on that I conclude it is high on other goods."
+
+"I was going to say," I said, "that I would meet the price." I wasn't
+going to say anything of the kind, but as he didn't want any I was
+safe in saying it now.
+
+"Then you may send me two. I think I know a place where I can sell
+two."
+
+Just so! I was in for it again, and in for it bad. Sometimes it pays
+to be smart, and sometimes it does not. This was one of the latter
+times. As a matter of fact I had no business to quote a discount
+greater than 20 per cent, but I had said 25 so as to make a good
+impression on him, and at 25 and 10 I was sure to catch Hail Columbia
+from the house.
+
+Just then Bob, who had come over when appealed to about the list,
+said:
+
+"There's that list you wanted," and drew one out of a pile of papers
+on the desk. Tucker opened it with an air of satisfaction, but I could
+see his face grow black.
+
+"D--n it, this isn't it."
+
+"Yes, it is; it's the one that came in yesterday, and there's the
+figures on it you made for Utley," persisted Bob.
+
+I did not wait on ceremony, but looked over Tucker's shoulders, and to
+my astonishment and delight, there was, in plain figures, discount on
+Parker guns, 15 and 10 per cent.
+
+"How in thunder did I make such a mistake!" said Tucker, with a
+somewhat downfallen air.
+
+"We all do it," said I, anxious to help him out the best way I could.
+"Fifteen and 10 is low enough, but if they were offering 50 and 10 I
+would meet them."
+
+Don't you think, good reader, that this was a proper thing to say? It
+seemed so to me, and cost nothing, so I said it. I added, "You see,
+Mr. Tucker, my price of 25 per cent, straight was a better one than
+Reachum's. Shall I send the guns at 25?"
+
+"Why, you just now said you'd sell at 25 and 10!"
+
+"I said that because you said you were offered at 25 and 10, but as
+that was a mistake I take back my figures."
+
+"Well, let the Parker guns go."
+
+I was quite glad to do so. But it made it up-hill work for a few
+minutes, until Tucker had got over his chagrin about the guns. But we
+managed to get in smooth water again, and when we were through I had
+taken a fair order from him, and much of it was for little odds and
+ends that paid us a good profit. I bade him good-day with a feeling of
+gratitude, and assured him of my hearty thankfulness.
+
+After dinner I tackled a general dealer. The hotel clerk told me the
+Pittsburg man, who was there a week before, had sold Cutter a bill, so
+I had no hopes of doing much with him, but I had two hours yet, and
+might as well improve them.
+
+"Martin Cutter" was over the door, and I got an idea in my head that
+he was a long, thin individual, with black hair and whiskers. But he
+wasn't. He was of medium size, well built, and had an air of
+shrewdness and of business about him. He was waiting on trade, so I
+sat down and watched him and took notes of the stock. When he was
+through with his customer he came forward and met me pleasantly, spoke
+well of our house, but said he was just getting in a bill of revolvers
+and cartridges, and needed nothing in our line.
+
+There was something about him that made me like him at once, and I had
+the feeling that I was making a pleasant impression upon him. We
+chatted about Pittsburg, about gun houses, about the cutting going on
+in prices, and the general dullness in all business. I think that when
+I went out of the store I had more respect for him as a man and as a
+merchant than I had for the two who had bought of me. Had he needed
+any goods, I would have given him my lowest prices at the first word.
+As I was walking back to the hotel I suddenly remembered that he was
+just the man to buy a certain pocket-knife that we had lately taken
+hold of, and I went back to speak about it to him.
+
+"Are you sending goods here to any one?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, two bills."
+
+"Then send me a dozen."
+
+I thanked him, and went off feeling better. The chances are always
+decidedly in your favor of selling a man whom you have sold before.
+The dealer who lets you leave town without an order this trip will let
+you go twice as readily the next time. I like to get him down in my
+order book even though it is for some very trifling thing, because of
+the influence it will have on the future.
+
+I went to the hotel, copied off my orders, and mailed them, feeling
+that I had done extra well, and then sauntered leisurely to the depot.
+On the train a man behind me heard me ask the conductor about
+Rossmore.
+
+He leaned over and asked, "Are you selling goods?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then we'll go to Rossmore together. What line are you in?"
+
+"Guns and revolvers."
+
+"The devil you are! So am I."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+I didn't fancy going to a town with a competitor. I have now been on
+the road a good many years, and I do not fancy it to-day. If I can get
+in there one train ahead of him I will strain every nerve to do it,
+but rather than go in on the same train I would hang back and let him
+have the first "go" at the town and take my chances for what he
+leaves.
+
+When two men selling the same goods are in a town together the dealers
+usually take advantage of it. They tell the first man that they may
+want this or that, "if they can buy it right," and, after getting his
+price, say he can come in later. He knows very well that this means
+his competitor is to be consulted also, and he must have a very stiff
+backbone indeed if he does not cut his own prices at once.
+
+So when my neighbor on the train told me he also was going to Rossmore
+and was selling guns and revolvers, I felt my courage ooze out of my
+fingers. He handed me a card, with a good-natured smile, and I read:
+
+                          SHIVERHIM & GAILY,
+                            Philadelphia.
+
+I don't like to hand out a card as an introduction of myself to other
+traveling men, so I told him my name and that of my house, and we
+considered ourselves acquainted.
+
+"Is this your first trip?"
+
+Now, why in thunder should he have asked that? Did I look different
+from other traveling men? I felt as if he showed very bad taste in
+asking such a question and I made a note to never do it unless I
+wanted to be mean. But I told Blissam (that was his name) that it was
+my first trip.
+
+"Then you'll find Rossmore a tough place to tackle."
+
+I said we had three customers there.
+
+"So have we; so has every dealer that ever went there. They buy a
+handful of goods of everybody, and they buy most goll-darned cheap.
+They'll lie to you until your head swims. First, there's Fisher; keeps
+an eating room on the main floor and gun store upstairs. I'll go in
+and quote him Remington guns at $36, when you call he'll ask your
+price; if you say $36, he'll tell you that you're high, and he'll
+break you down in spite of yourself."
+
+"But when a fellow gets to the bottom he's got to stop," said I.
+
+"Oh, there's no bottom to guns. It's the meanest business in the
+world, and it used to be the best. In '70-'73 I could make big profits
+as easy as a duck swims, but now it's all glory. I sold Simmons a bill
+of $600 last week, and made exactly eighteen dollars.
+
+"Oh, well," said I, "you can't expect to make much on Simmons, but
+there are lots of places where you do make a good profit now."
+
+"No, sir; it can't be done. Say, are you going to cut prices much at
+Rossmore?"
+
+"Not at all, if I can help it. I'm out on the road to make money, and
+not to show big sales. But I'm afraid your house will overshadow
+mine."
+
+"Oh, that's all nonsense; people don't go a cent on houses any more;
+prices are what tell. I'll introduce you."
+
+Not much. No competitor of mine ever introduced me or ever shall. I
+prefer to introduce myself in my own time and way.
+
+We reached Rossmore about 7 o'clock in the evening. Blissam took it
+for granted that I was going to the Everett House, but my hotels had
+been fixed for me by our old traveling man, and he had instructed me
+to go to the Forest; a cheaper house, but in all other respects equal
+to the other. I was rather glad, too, that we were not going to the
+same house. Be ever so sociable with a competitor, still the fact
+remains that he is a competitor, and his success means your failure.
+Under such circumstances a man must be less interested in his business
+than I was to permit him to feel very desirous of his competitor's
+company.
+
+After registering at the hotel it occurred to me that it would be a
+good idea to catch any of the dealers that I could that evening and
+break the ice. It might be worth something to make a good impression
+before Blissam got around. After getting my bearings well established,
+I started to call on Billwock.
+
+Billwock was pretty generally known in the gun trade; first for being
+mighty slow pay, and second for the fact that they had a baby at his
+shop regularly every year or oftener, and the store was used as
+nursery and play-ground. Traveling men had to see the last baby and
+count all the old ones, and according as they praised them did old
+Billwock buy liberally or not.
+
+The head of the house had said to me, "Don't push goods on Billwock;
+he owes us enough already. If you squeeze a good payment out of him
+you can sell him a small bill."
+
+This kind of talk is all good enough, so far as it goes; but the poor
+devil on the road often finds he can't get a cent, neither can he sell
+any goods. The men at home think all he need do is to say, "Here I am;
+what is it you want?" and then copy the order as fast as he can write.
+But the men who order that way are the kind who never intend to pay
+for what they order.
+
+I thought the matter of Billwock's account all over by the time I
+found his store. It was dimly lighted, but I saw a man and woman at
+the rear, and went in. A mussy and dirty looking man came forward to
+meet me, but when he had walked a little way he evidently concluded
+that I was a drummer, and that I might walk the rest of the way to
+him.
+
+"Is this Mr. Billwock?" I asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+I told him who I was, but he seemed little interested. I started to
+ask about his business, but some one sang out my name and said, "Don't
+go talking business out there; come back and see the baby."
+
+Blissam, by thunder!
+
+I went back and found him beside Mrs. Billwock, with a young one on
+his knee, and as much at home as if he was the uncle of all concerned.
+I made up my mind that Blissam couldn't be any more sociable than I
+could, and I set out to do my prettiest.
+
+About 9 o'clock we both went out together, and, perhaps naturally,
+drifted to the smoking room of his hotel. He was an old hand on the
+road, and full of stories of his own and others' experience. I tried
+to be a good listener.
+
+"There are some mighty queer men in the trade," said he, as he puffed
+his cigar. "I took an order from a man in Indiana, not long ago, for
+felt wads, Nos. 8 and 9, and for some cardboard. When I went to copy
+my orders I remembered that the man had given no size for the
+cardboard wanted, but I was pretty sure he wanted 12's, and wrote that
+size. As it happened the house was out of No. 9 felt and let it go, as
+he only wanted one-third of a dozen. What did the fellow do but send
+back the card-board wads, saying he had ordered 9's, and giving us
+Hail Columbia for sending 12's instead, as well as a long epistle
+about knowing his own business, and not wanting our help in running
+it. The card-board wads were worth about 33 cents, and the express
+charges on them back were 25 cents. I tell you the world is full of
+smart Alecks."
+
+"I presume I have seen more about returned goods than you have," I
+said, "as I have been in the store so long, and see every package that
+comes in. I do get my back up over some of the stupid things the
+average retailer will do. It never seems to enter his head to drop the
+house a card and await their instructions about the goods that are
+unsatisfactory, but he fancies he is showing how smart he is by
+whacking them back at once, and always by express, no matter how heavy
+the goods are. A neighbor of mine, a hardware man, told me an instance
+of the smart Aleck a few days ago. The house was handling a new
+tubular lantern and selling it under the market price of regular
+goods. The traveling man sent in three orders from a Michigan town,
+each of them for one-half dozen lanterns. The stock clerk had a single
+half dozen of the new lantern and found a half-dozen case of the
+genuine. He filled two orders and put the other half-dozen on the
+back-order book. The genuine was billed at the cut price and nothing
+said on the bill. In a day or two back that case came by express, and
+an indignant letter from the customer for palming off on him the old
+tubular, when the agent had sold the new. The clerk erased the mark
+and sent the case back to the other man in the town whose order was
+not filled. You can see how much time, trouble and expense would have
+been saved had the smart Aleck dropped a card to the house saying he
+did not want the lanterns and held them subject to orders.
+
+"Yes," said Blissam, "but I have seen goods go back when I thought it
+was the proper thing to do. You know one of the latest schemes is to
+sell goods in cases, and throw in the show-case. It started with
+needle and thread men and has gone into a good many other things. A
+concern from somewhere in Ohio had a man in Illinois selling shears in
+this way. In one town he sold the dry-goods man a case, at 45 per
+cent, off retail prices, and gave him the exclusive sale of the town,
+and then sold a hardware man across the street at 50 per cent,
+discount, and gave him the exclusive sale. When each party opened up
+his stock and made a display they soon discovered how the land lay,
+and, furthermore, the way in which the dry-goods man swore when he saw
+the other's bill at so much less than his, would have made your hair
+stand up. He boxed up these goods and sent them back by express, and I
+thought he did right."
+
+I went down to my hotel and sat a while in the smoking-room. There
+were several traveling men there, and they seemed to be very much
+interested in some "she," but I was never a good hand at making
+acquaintances, and I made no effort here, but went to my room and soon
+fell asleep, to dream all night about selling goods at 100 per cent
+profit. The next morning I was out bright and early to see Jewell &
+Son. The clerk said neither of the firm was in, so I made myself as
+pleasant to him as I could, and posted myself as to the goods the
+house was handling, and the prices they were paying. By and by the
+elder Jewell appeared, and as I introduced myself he said:
+
+"Gun men are plenty to-day; my son has just gone to the hotel with a
+Mr. Blissam to look at his goods."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+When I found that Blissam was ahead of me, notwithstanding my being
+out so early, I felt as if I should be glad to get away from him as
+soon as I could. He was altogether too numerous for me. He had told me
+he wasn't going to cut prices, and I was very sure I did not want to
+do it, but I made up my mind I was going to get my share of the trade,
+cut or no cut.
+
+I began with talk to Mr. Jewell about a single-barrel breech-loader
+our house was controlling, and quoted it at $7.20, sixty days.
+
+"Is that the F. & W. gun?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Why, Blissam quotes that at $7."
+
+The deuce he did! Yet he was the boy that didn't intend to cut.
+
+"Was his price net?"
+
+"No, two off, ten days."
+
+"Well, that brings them $6.86. We make 5 off in case lots, bringing
+them down to $6.84, and there is 2 off that, ten days."
+
+This was so mighty close to what the goods were costing us that I felt
+like crying as I made the figures; but my back was up, and I didn't
+propose to let Blissam walk over me, even if he was from Philadelphia.
+
+Mr. Jewell was a very pleasant man to meet. He had no hobbies, no
+crotchets. He was as pleasant with me as if I was buying instead of
+trying to sell to him. This is a pretty good test of a man. One that
+meets a strange traveling man pleasantly and gives him a patient
+hearing is bound to be pleasant and kind-hearted clear through.
+
+I gave him quotations on revolvers and cartridges, and tried to get
+him to say he would not order of Blissam till I saw him again; but he
+would not promise, for the reason, he said, that his son might even
+then be buying at Blissam's room. Still, he said, it was the son's
+custom to do no more than make a memorandum at the hotel and give the
+order after consulting him.
+
+I then started off to see Billwock, and squeeze some money out of him.
+His wife and seven children (or more) were there, but no Billwock.
+Where was he?
+
+He was down getting a boat ready to go fishing with Mr. Blissam that
+afternoon, she said.
+
+Confound Blissam!
+
+Had Mr. Billwock left any word for me?
+
+"Nein; not ein wort."
+
+I found where he was and started for him. He wasn't at all pleased to
+see me; in fact he didn't seem to care whether I had gone from
+Rossmore or not.
+
+"Going fishing?" I asked. "Yes; I dakes a leetle fish."
+
+"Don't you need some goods?"
+
+"No; I dinks not."
+
+"How about money? Haven't you got some for me?" "Not a tollar now. You
+see I pay Plissam last night ery tollar I haf."
+
+"Why didn't you divide?"
+
+"It was not wort' w'ile."
+
+"But I must have some money; your account is long past due and we need
+it."
+
+"W'at you do? I got no money, I told you."
+
+"You must get some. I don't care how you get it or what you do, but I
+must have $50 to-day." "Well; if I get it I gif it you."
+
+"But you are not going to get it while you are off fishing. I don't
+want to be too stiff, but I want you to understand that I mean just
+what I say. Our house drew on you and you let the draft come back, and
+I have orders now to attend to it."
+
+"What you do, s'pose I not get it?"
+
+"I shall tell you when the time comes."
+
+He saw I meant business, so tied up his boat and started toward the
+store, muttering to himself and looking daggers at me. When he reached
+the store he talked in German with his wife awhile, and finally said
+to me:
+
+"You come in pimepy and I see what I can do."
+
+Satisfied there would be some money coming I then called on the
+hardware house of Whipper & Co. I had often heard of Whipper. He was
+known to the trade as the biggest liar east of the Mississippi; but a
+real good liar is usually an affable fellow to meet, and Whipper
+called me "My dear boy" before we were together five minutes.
+
+I sympathize with business men in their affliction from traveling men.
+We go into their stores early or late, as suits ourselves; we expect
+their immediate attention, and we want to sell them or have a good
+reason for not doing it. I often walk back to a man's desk and find
+him intently at work over something; I would gladly back out if I
+could, and risk the coming in later at a more opportune time. But he
+has seen me, probably cusses to himself, hopes I am selling something
+he doesn't keep, so he can cut me off at once, and then takes my card
+or listens to my name.
+
+I don't want to come right out and say "Do you need anything in my
+line?" for if he answers "No" I ought to turn about and leave him, so
+I casually remark that it is a good day, or a stormy day, and he says
+"Yes," as if he had heard that before. I take a roundabout way of
+getting to my business, and all the time he would be very glad if I
+was in Halifax. I may interest him in my goods before I get through,
+but if he could have had his way he would have omitted the interview
+until a better time for him.
+
+But there are men on the road who drum a man if they reach the town at
+midnight, and as he sticks his head out of his bedroom window, inform
+him they are giving an extra 2 1/2 on "J. I. C." curry-combs and ask
+him how he wants his shipped. Henley can do this. The boys on the road
+know that he carries a Waterbury watch in each pocket, and expects to
+sell 1,000 bills in 1,000 minutes.
+
+I appreciate such a man as Whipper. Whatever it was he was doing he
+always dropped it, and met a salesman as if he was honestly pleased. I
+think that ought to offset a great many sins. I hope it will.
+
+I told him my little story and he looked as if he believed every word
+I said. Then he asked, in a very confidential tone "What is your best
+price on American bull-dogs?"
+
+"Two dollars and eighty-five cents."
+
+"Phew! You are far out of the way, my dear boy, far out of the way.
+Did you see this last card of Reachum's? No? How could you? You are on
+the road. We now get two postals a day from Reachum, and I expect to
+see them coming oftener by and by. Tom, where's Reachum's last card?"
+
+"I don't know; I toss them in the waste basket when I come across
+them."
+
+"Don't do it again; I want to make a collection of them in an album.
+So $2.85 is the best you can do?"
+
+Now, $2.85 was as well as any one could do, and we only had a margin
+of 10 per cent. to figure on. But I determined to cut a little, just
+for fun, and see what the upshot would be. So I said, "$2.85 is bottom
+everywhere, but I am going to make you a special price of $2.82 1/2."
+
+"Tom," said he turning to the desk, "What was that Shiverhim & Gaily
+man's price for bull-dogs?"
+
+"Two dollars and eighty cents."
+
+I swore to myself that I would punch Blissam's head when I next met
+him in a good place. There was no getting even with him, let alone
+getting ahead of him. I dared not go below $2.80, sell or no sell, so
+I began to talk brand.
+
+"Two dollars and eighty cents is all the Lovell bull-dog ought to sell
+for," I said: "in fact $2.75 is Reachum's price on them, but we are
+selling F.& W. goods, and can easily get 5 to 10 cents more for them."
+
+"Will you sell me some of Lovell's at $2.75?"
+
+"I would if I had them, but we don't carry them. I'll make you the F.
+& W. at $2.80, and I shall catch thunder for doing that. But I want to
+sell you."
+
+"To be sure; to be sure!"
+
+He said this as a man might humor a child, and as if he fully
+understood all that was in my mind.
+
+"Tom, do we need any bull-dogs?"
+
+"No, sir; got 50 on the way from Reachum at $2.70."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+I probably looked as disappointed as I felt, for Whipper's voice took
+on a very sympathetic tone. "You could not touch $2.70?" he asked.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+I felt like adding, "I can't touch anything; I'm going home."
+
+"What is your price on cartridges?"
+
+"Combination price; same as every one else."
+
+"Is this your first trip?"
+
+"Yes, and my last. I'm not cut out for the road. I don't suppose I
+could sell you anything even if you wanted it; I'm not a success."
+
+"Pooh; pooh! I've been on the road myself; it is not always fair
+sailing, and it is not always foul. Keep a stiff upper lip."
+
+Yes, keep a stiff upper lip, when goods were being sold at cost all
+around you! I was not built that way. Just then the book-keeper, Tom,
+handed a memo to Whipper and he turned to me. "Have you Quickenbush
+rifles?"
+
+"Yes; blued and plated. Regular price, $5. I'll make you special price
+if you want any."
+
+"What will you do?"
+
+They cost us $4.50 at the factory; I quoted $4.75.
+
+"Great Caesar! You are high!"
+
+"Yes? Well, it is the best I can do."
+
+"Make it $4.50 and we will take twelve."
+
+"No, sir; it can't be done. But I am afraid there is no use in my
+trying to sell you. If you can get them at $4.50 you can buy as low as
+we can."
+
+"Well, send me a dozen."
+
+I entered the order. Was there anything else?
+
+"What is the best you will do on bull-dogs?"
+
+"$2.80 is bottom; but you say you have ordered them?"
+
+"Oh, that is one of Tom's lies; you may send us 50."
+
+We went through the list, and the old man gave me a very nice order;
+then followed me to the door with his arm in mine, and sent me off as
+if he was bidding good-by to a son. I forgave him all his lies, and
+feel kindly toward him to this day.
+
+I ran into a hardware store with my samples of cutlery, hoping to do
+something in a line where Blissam could not meet me, but the first man
+I saw was Blissam, leaning over the show-case, as if entirely at home,
+and in full possession of the stock. He introduced me to Mr. Thompson
+as if we had been traveling companions for life, but added to me,
+"Thompson does not do much in our line, except caps and cartridges,
+and I've just fixed him up."
+
+I felt like taking him by the nape of the neck and dropping him down
+the sewer, but I turned to Mr. Thompson and talked cutlery. I told him
+I had a line of No. 1 goods at low prices, every blade warranted, and
+put up in extra nice style for retailers.
+
+"Whose make?" he asked.
+
+"Northington's; but made especially for our house, and with our brand.
+We are making a specialty of a few patterns, and intend to make it an
+object to the retailer to handle them and stick to them."
+
+"You can't touch me on those goods," said Thompson; "I've handled them
+and had trouble with them. I am now handling nothing but the New York.
+I don't know that they're better than any other, but Tom Bradley
+dropped in here one day, and I had to give him an order, and I've not
+been able to leave him ever since."
+
+"Does he come often?"
+
+"No, about once in two years or so, but he's business from the ground
+up. I like him and like his goods, and I don't want to change."
+
+I took out my samples more for the purpose of posting myself than with
+hopes of selling him, and where my patterns were like those in his
+stock he passed mine over without a word, but I saw that two patterns
+of mine pleased him. They were even-enders, 3 1/2 in. brass lined, and
+cost us $3.85. We had been getting, in half dozen lots, $4.80, but I
+felt that I was in a dangerous place, and I quoted $4.25.
+
+He went back to his stock and returned with a sample the exact
+counterpart of mine, and said, smiling, "This is Bradley's; he's a
+tough fellow to beat; I paid $3.65 for it."
+
+I lost all interest in pocket knives then and there and got out of the
+store right speedily. I was feeling savage, and made straight for
+Billwock's. He had made a raise of $40 for me, saying, with several
+German-American oaths, that was all he could do, and when I talked of
+selling him something he looked as if he would throw me out of the
+window.
+
+I called twice at Jewell's before I caught father and son there
+together, and then I had a difficult task before me. The father was
+inclined to give me the preference, the son favored Blissam, but they
+had not yet ordered, and were needing some goods, and I felt as if I
+could never forgive myself if I were to fail then and there.
+
+They tackled me first on Flobert rifles; I quoted them at exactly 10
+per cent, above cost to import, but they declared I was too high. I
+felt sure Blissam's house bought no lower than we did, and that he
+could not sell on less margin than that, so I stood up to the price.
+Then we took up bull-dogs; I named $2.80, and they shook their heads
+at that; so they did at price of Champion guns, till I began to feel
+that my case was hopeless.
+
+"I am afraid we can't give you an order to-day," said the son.
+
+"I have quoted you my best prices," I said, "and am disappointed."
+
+They talked together a few moments and finally said, "You may send us
+a case of Champion guns," and this was followed by other items. I
+could see that they were dividing the order between Blissam and me,
+and I felt grateful for even this, and tried to make this evident. I
+succeeded in getting several items that paid a good profit, and I went
+to my hotel feeling that I had done pretty well.
+
+At the desk I was handed a note from Whipper, saying: If you cannot
+make the Quickenbush rifles $4.60 please omit them.
+
+There was but $3 profit in the item, and I would have omitted them but
+for a desire that Blissam should not get ahead of me; so I started for
+the store to learn something about it. On the way I met Blissam, and I
+put it right at him. "Are you quoting Quickenbush rifles at $4.60?"
+
+"Not by a drum sight! Who says so?"
+
+I handed him Whipper's note.
+
+"Are you going there?" he asked.
+
+I said I was.
+
+"I'll go with you." This suited me. We saw no look of surprise on
+Whipper's face. I went straight to the point. "I can't sell the rifles
+at $4.60, Mr. Whipper, unless I know some one else has quoted that
+price; if they have, I'll meet it."
+
+"Just scratch them off," said he, as calm as a day in June.
+
+"But has any one given you such a figure?"
+
+"Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies. If I can get them at
+$4.60 I will take them."
+
+I could get nothing more out of him and we started back. On the way we
+met Tom, Whipper's book-keeper. I asked him what it meant. "Oh," said
+he, laughing, "I guess the old man thinks he can get them at $4.60,
+but we have so many on hand, perhaps it's only his way of canceling
+the item." And that was all I ever got from them about it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+I parted with Blissam at the hotel, he going to the South and I West,
+and about 7 o'clock that evening I reached B--. I had often heard our
+traveling man speak of the hotel here, and the popularity it had among
+salesmen, so I was prepared to find the smoking room tolerably well
+filled when I went in there after supper. There were half a dozen or
+more in one group, who seemed to be on the best of terms, and I
+listened to their talk. I found that they were discussing the mistakes
+of the shipping and stock clerks, and of course that touched me upon a
+tender spot, and I was all attention.
+
+"Some of our boys used to make the most absurd mistakes," said one
+talker; "but the old man was about as bad as any of them. I remember
+getting most mighty scared once. I had been entry clerk and shipper
+and jack-of-all-trades in the house. One night's mail brought us back
+a letter we had mailed, with the notation of the postmaster, 'No such
+man here.' Taylor, the boss, took the mail, calling out to the
+book-keeper, 'Fague, I guess we've got a mistake on you this time.'
+Fague looked at it, saying, 'I don't believe I've made a mistake, but
+if I have I must stand it.' The envelope was torn open and the address
+on the bill was the same as that on the outside, John Smith, New
+Castle, Ind. Then I was sent to the order book, but the order there
+was New Castle, Ind. Taylor was getting mad. I was told to find the
+original order, which I did, and discovered that it was from John
+Smith, New Carlisle, Ind. Says Taylor, 'There's altogether too many
+mistakes here. Now these goods are lying at New Castle, and will have
+to be ordered back; the chances are Smith will refuse to receive them,
+and we will lose at least $75. The man that made that mistake ought to
+be known; if we owe him anything he can have it in the morning, and
+then let him be discharged. What do you say, Dewey?' 'It's a bad
+mistake,' said Dewey, the partner, 'and we are making a good many, but
+it's pritty hard to discharge a man. Let us see who made it, and show
+him how much loss it causes us, and give him a pritty good scolding.'
+'No,' said Taylor, 'he ought to be discharged; d--n him, he ain't fit
+to be around a store; if we owe him anything pay him up, and let him
+go; it will be a lesson to the rest. 'Billy,' turning to me, 'bring
+the book here so we can see who made that mistake.' Now I was mighty
+afraid that I had done it. I had been doing that work, more or less of
+the time, and I trembled as if I had the ague. And in looking at it
+before, I had paid no attention to the writing. I went back to the
+desk for the book, and brought it to Taylor. Dewey came over to look
+at it as Taylor opened the book and found the place. 'H--l,' said
+Taylor, 'I did it myself!' Jerusalem! but I felt good! 'Well,' said
+Dewey, 'if we owe you anything you'd better take it.' I was just about
+dying to holler. The next day all the boys knew it, and Taylor was
+mighty quiet for several weeks after that."
+
+"I came near losing a customer once," said another man, "by a little
+carelessness. I went into his store in a great hurry; sold him a bill,
+and collected pay for a previous one. I neglected to enter the
+collection on my book and also to report to the house. They shipped
+the goods ordered, but supposing that I had not collected amount due
+from him, inclosed a statement of account with a 'please remit' at the
+bottom. No bull ever flew at a red rag quicker than he flew at that
+statement, and he wrote a saucy letter, saying he had paid me, and he
+didn't like being dunned for a paid bill, etc., etc. You all know just
+how a small man will act under those conditions. They forwarded his
+letter to me and I acknowledged my carelessness; I wrote him taking
+all the blame on my shoulders, and explaining how the mistake
+happened. But his Irish was up, and in a few weeks he went into the
+store, still talking 'bigitty,' proposing to settle up and quit. The
+book-keeper took his money, handing him back his change and a receipt.
+He counted the change and pushed it back, saying, 'That ain't right.'
+The boss stood near, taking all the tongue-lashing, but feeling as if
+his cup would run over if the book-keeper had now been guilty of
+making a mistake. He took the change, ran it over hastily, and saw
+that it was correct. This was nuts. 'It seems,' said he, 'you
+occasionally make mistakes, Mr. B., so you ought to make allowance for
+others. It is a devilish smart man who never makes a mistake, and a
+devilish mean one who will not make allowances for the mistakes made
+by another.' 'Oh, I'm mean, am I,' said B.; 'well, I pay my bills.'
+'So do other people; you're not the only man who pays.' But B. went
+off on his high horse. The next time I went there I could'nt touch him
+with a ten-foot pole, but the trip after he came around all right."
+
+"I wish I had no collecting to do," said a man near me; "I can sell
+goods, but collecting is the deuce-and-all. I envy the New Yorkers who
+don't have any collecting to do. Their business is to sell, and the
+house collects."
+
+"But when we do have to look after an account." said a man whom I had
+set down as a New Yorker from the first, "it is always a tough one.
+Not long ago our house told me to stop at a town to see one Berry &
+Co., who had let two drafts come back, and then had written an
+impudent letter. They had given us an order for about $700 worth of
+goods, but they are quoted light, and the old man concluded he'd send
+on a part of it, and when that was paid send another part, and so on.
+They refused to pay because they did not get all the goods ordered,
+and when asked for a report of their condition refused to give one,
+saying parties could find out about them from Dun or Bradstreet. I
+presented the account and was told they wouldn't pay until they had
+to. I reasoned with them, but the fellow was a big-head, and the more
+I talked the worse he acted. I finally told him I was sent there to
+get the money or put the account in the hands of an attorney, and went
+out saying I would be back again at a given hour and I hoped they
+would be ready to settle up. I went to the other dealers there whom I
+knew and they all said the fellow hadn't a leg to stand on in court. I
+went back in the afternoon, and after getting another tongue lashing,
+he gave me a check, but told me I had lied, as he handed it to me. I
+haven't wanted to punch any one in years as I did him, but I gave him
+my opinion of him in a few words, and he won't soon forget it, either.
+Now, you Western men don't have that kind of trouble in your
+collecting."
+
+"No," said a grocer, "our men never say they will not pay; it's the
+other way; they say they will and then don't. Seems to me I could get
+along with a man who said he wouldn't but could be made to. I could do
+something there; but the fellow who solemnly assures you he will send
+in a large remittance next week, and then doesn't, is a hard one to
+manage."
+
+"Do you want to know who, in my opinion, is the smallest man on
+earth?" asked a Chicago traveler.
+
+Of course they all looked assent.
+
+"Well," said he, "Ed. Smythe told about him the other day, and I know
+the man. Ed. had his samples open at the Moody House and called on the
+man. Yes, he would go look at them; he wanted a few German goods. He
+went there, looked the cards all over (Ed. has three trunks), made a
+sheet full of memo's, and said he would write out an order. Ed. called
+around about 6 o'clock in the evening. There are two chairs in the
+office; the hog sat in one and had his feet in the other; he was
+reading a newspaper and kept on reading; Ed. stood around patiently,
+as any man can afford to be patient if he is going to get an order. In
+the course of half an hour a friend came in and wanted to know of the
+hog if he wasn't ready to go somewhere. He jumped up, pushed his books
+in the safe, talked to his friend, and ignored Ed. After a while Ed.
+said: 'Have you made out your order, Mr. B.?' 'No, sir; I'm not going
+to give you an order. I don't intend to buy any more from your house,'
+and he walked into Ed. in a way that he evidently thought would
+impress his friend that he was a wonderful cuss. Ed. is a good-natured
+fellow, and business is business; he didn't open on him then, but he
+got even before long. I tell you the smallest man in the world; the
+meanest dog in the kennel; the dirtiest whelp I know, is the fellow
+who thinks it's brave to abuse a drummer when he has him in his own
+store."
+
+This received a universal amen.
+
+"Let me read you a sketch from the _American Grocer_ on 'Smart
+Alecks,'" said a man, drawing a copy of that paper out of his pocket.
+"It's called, 'Solomon Smart visits the City.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+Solomon Smart, of New Portage, O., dealer in general merchandise and
+country produce, had been in business three years, but had never,
+until the present occasion, visited the city where the larger share of
+his purchases came from.
+
+Going to the city was something to which he had long looked forward.
+He had dreamt of it when he was a clerk; he had eagerly questioned the
+traveling men about it, and his old employer always told marvelous
+tales when he returned from his annual trip.
+
+When the old man died, and Solomon, assisted by his father-in-law, was
+enabled to buy the stock, he began to arrange for a business trip to
+the city, but somehow every plan he made was interfered with and came
+to naught. It was a source of great grief to him that he could not
+carry out his plans.
+
+"If I could only get to Toledo," he often said to his wife, "I could
+save at least 10 per cent on prices, and I could pick up job lots of
+things at big discounts. All the jobbing houses have odds and ends
+that they are willing to sell at anything they can get, in order to
+get rid of the stuff. I hate to buy of drummers. It costs piles of
+money to keep them on the road, and the men that buy of them have to
+pay it."
+
+Solomon, as may be supposed, was not popular with traveling men. His
+contempt for them was expressed openly, and his opinion of their being
+a curse to retailers was usually the first thing he told them, after
+be had looked at their cards. Some of them argued the matter with him.
+Some of the more independent members of the profession told him he was
+a blank fool. But those who called regularly let him say his say and
+then squeezed an order from him, keeping their opinion of him for use
+outside his store.
+
+His peculiar opinion of traveling salesmen was not his only
+peculiarity. Most of "the boys" on the road mentioned him as "Smarty
+Smart," because of certain tendencies he had of making reductions in
+prices, of marking off charges for cartage or boxing, or of returning
+goods because he had changed his mind after buying them.
+
+Solomon didn't intend to be mean; he fancied he was only standing up
+for his rights, and if he occasionally took a little more than his
+conscience told him was his "rights," he soothed that by saying to
+himself that the house wanted to sell him so mighty bad they would
+stand it.
+
+Let a man be constituted as Solomon was and his "smartness" grows on
+him. He has an idea that every house he buys from is trying to get
+unfair advantage of him, and that he must present a bold front or he
+will be imposed upon. He always magnifies his importance as a buyer,
+and fancies that every order he sends in is met with a hand-organ and
+treated to champagne.
+
+So when he finally saw his way clear to making the long-wished-for
+visit, some of his pleasantest anticipations were the welcomes he
+expected from the heads of the wholesale houses, and the invitations
+he would receive to dine and wine with them. But he did not propose
+that they should pull the wool over his eyes. He would show them that
+he was no "greeny," and that he knew what was what.
+
+He carried two large empty valises with him to bring home as much of
+his purchases as possible as baggage, and when he reached the city
+hotel late in the evening the clerk sized him up as easily and as
+accurately as if he had known him for ages, and sent him to one of the
+poorest rooms in the house most unceremoniously.
+
+The next morning, bright and early, Mr. Smart started out to do
+business. His first call was on a hardware man with whom he had done
+considerable business, and from whom he was sure of a warm welcome. He
+was met by a pleasant young man whose manner seemed to ask, What is
+your business? He asked for Mr. Braun. Mr. Braun was not down yet but
+would be in a short time. Would he wait? No; Solomon didn't propose to
+wait. He was there on business and must attend to his business.
+Perhaps the young man could wait on him? No, indeed; Solomon didn't
+come to town to be waited on by clerks. Perhaps he would call again,
+but he said it with a doubtful tone as if he was not sure that he
+would patronize a house where the proprietor didn't get around earlier
+in the morning. Then again he was somewhat indignant that the clerk
+should not have known him, and when he was asked to leave his name he
+went off saying it was no matter.
+
+Then he called at Sikkor's, wondering if anyone would be in there. Was
+Mr. Sikkor in? No; did he want to see him personally? Personally! He
+wanted to see him on business, of course. He would not be at the store
+that morning, but Mr. Birden was at the desk, yonder, if he would do.
+Well, it was good to find one proprietor in; and he moved over to
+Birden's desk, where that gentleman was busy opening the morning's
+mail. He looked up at the approach of Smart, said "Good morning," and
+waited for Solomon to tell his business.
+
+"This is Mr. Birden?"
+
+"Yes, sir," pleasantly.
+
+Solomon had rather expected him to say, "This is Mr. Smart?" and to
+hold out his arms, so he was somewhat disconcerted.
+
+"I buy goods of your house occasionally."
+
+"Yes? Whereabouts is your place?"
+
+"North Portage."
+
+"North Portage, eh? What is the name, please?"
+
+"Smart."
+
+"Yes." Solomon could see that he might as well have said Smith, so far
+as Birden's seeming to recall it was concerned, and he began to get
+angry.
+
+"How is trade, Mr. Smart?"
+
+"Rather dull just at present."
+
+"Sorry to hear that; hope it will improve. You have a memorandum for
+some of our goods, Mr. Smart? Let me call one of the men to wait on
+you. Church, look here."
+
+And before Solomon had time to open his mouth he was introduced to
+Church, who shook hands with him, linked his arm through his, and had
+him half way to the sample room. They were getting on well till Church
+asked: "Let me see, Mr. Smart, where is your place?"
+
+"North Portage," said Solomon in his crispest manner. No one seemed to
+know him, or to remember him five seconds.
+
+"Oh, yes; North Portage. Waite goes there. Waite's a good fellow; you
+like him, don't you?"
+
+"I'd like to have him stay at home. I never want to see a drummer."
+
+"Is that so?" and Church looked at him in mild surprise. "Well, what
+shall we start on first?"
+
+Solomon wasn't prepared to start on anything. It wasn't at all the way
+he had expected to get started. He didn't like being pushed from one
+proprietor to another, and then to a mere clerk, and to have that man
+take it for granted that he was going to buy without any coaxing or
+figuring. He was disappointed. He expected to have bought a bill here,
+but there were other stores of the same kind in Toledo, and he
+believed he'd punish these fellows for their indifference by going
+somewhere else. Good idea! He would act on it.
+
+He told Church that he guessed he wouldn't leave an order just then;
+maybe he would come in again. Church coaxed him a little then, but it
+was too late. Solomon was bound to go, and off he started for a notion
+house.
+
+The proprietor was in the office, shook hands with him, asked about
+trade and crops and finally proposed to show him some goods. This was
+more to Solomon's taste, and he bought readily, but he was disgusted
+to see that prices were no lower than the traveling man had sold at.
+He mentioned this to Shaw. "Lower? Of course not. We can't ask you one
+price in Toledo and another in North Portage. My man carries my stock
+into your store, lets you see the goods, quotes you prices and posts
+you."
+
+"But his expenses are big; it costs you nothing to sell me now."
+
+"His expenses come out of my pocket; not out of yours. I would be
+mighty glad if traveling men were done away with; but it would be a
+saving to me, not to you."
+
+This rather staggered Solomon, for it upset one of his hobbies. As he
+was finishing, and about to say "good-by" to Mr. Shaw, he saw the
+book-keeper whisper into that gentleman's ear and turn away.
+
+"By the by, Mr. Smart, my book-keeper tells me he has had some
+correspondence with you over deductions made in remittances. These
+little things are very annoying, and while the amount in dollars and
+cents is nothing, still business ought to be done in a business way."
+
+Smart began to feel very hot.
+
+"The book-keeper tells me that your last bill ran nearly two months
+over time, and that you not only refused to pay interest, but did not
+pay express on your remittance. Now, Mr. Smart, this is not right. Our
+place of business is Toledo, not North Portage; our bills are due
+here, not there; and if we allow them to run sixty days after due we
+are loaning you money, and ought to be paid for the use of it."
+
+"I don't get interest from my customers," said Solomon.
+
+"That's your business and theirs. You do not sell them on a jobber's
+profit. We deal with you as a business man, and in a business way. I
+think I know just how you feel," said Shaw, pleasantly; "when I began
+business I felt the same way. I squeezed every cent that I could from
+the men I bought from; but I discovered that it was poor policy. I
+saved a few cents and lost the good will of the house, which was worth
+dollars. I speak of all this in a kindly way, and to avoid future
+misunderstandings. Don't you think of any thing else? No? Well,
+good-by, I am glad you called and hope to do more with you in the
+future." And before Solomon knew it he was bowed out.
+
+But he was boiling with rage. He was particularly angry with himself.
+He had stood there and taken the lecture as if he was a boy. It was in
+his mind to cancel the order just given to Shaw, but that gentleman
+had dismissed him so politely and smoothly that he hadn't had time to
+do it. It had never seemed possible to him that he would have listened
+to such a lecture as that without giving back as good as he got, and
+then sending the man and his goods to---, a place where there is no
+insurance against fire.
+
+In no very happy frame of mind his next call was on his dry-goods
+house. Mr. Luce met him, when he introduced himself, decidedly coldly.
+Solomon began to think that he would go to some other house with his
+order rather than leave it here. But before he made a move to go out
+Mr. Luce asked, "Is there anything I can do for you?"
+
+"I don't know as there is."
+
+"Our Mr. Goodnow did not stop at your place the other day because of
+your habit of returning goods. While we would be glad to do business
+with you, we cannot allow anyone the privilege of ordering goods and
+then returning them at our expense, if he happens to change his mind.
+I do not try to make Eastern houses shoulder my mistakes, if I make
+any in ordering goods, and I don't see why I should bear your
+burdens."
+
+"Why don't you send what I order? I didn't order the blue print I
+returned the other day."
+
+"Mr. Goodnow is very positive that you did order it. It is always
+possible that the small sample he carries with him appears differently
+to a man than the goods do when seen in the whole piece. And a man
+might occasionally be expected to make a mistake, as you did the other
+day when you wrote us to send you three gross of corsets, when you
+intended, you said afterward, to order but three dozen. But in the
+last three bills bought of Goodnow you have sent back goods, and it is
+not possible that he made such mistakes. Then you deduct from bills,
+though made out at prices agreed upon."
+
+"The last cambrics were billed half a cent too high," said Solomon.
+
+"Then you shouldn't have ordered them. The time to make prices is when
+you are buying. We have a price for every article in our stock; if you
+ask it we will give it to you, and then you are at liberty to order or
+not, as you think best; but if you send us an order for cambrics and
+say nothing about the price you have no right to express them back to
+us because our price happens to be different from what you expected.
+You could have learned our price before ordering, and not having done
+so, you ought to be man enough to stand to your own action."
+
+"You claim to sell as low as any one, don't you?"
+
+"We do, and are ready to quote our prices so they can be compared with
+others when called upon to do so. But we all cut occasionally for
+reasons of our own, and I prefer to make prices when selling goods,
+not after they are delivered. Some time ago you returned by express a
+few trinkets. You knew that Mr. Goodnow would be at your place in a
+short time, and you might easily have waited until seeing him before
+returning the goods, but you evidently thought you were punishing us
+and showing your grit by rushing them back by express. I assure you it
+does not add to your reputation as a business man. I thought I would
+mention these points to you because they are important in our
+relations, and unless the men you buy from feel pleasantly towards you
+there is every reason to suppose that you will be the loser."
+
+"I guess I can buy all the goods I want," said Solomon; "I've not been
+troubled that way yet." And he walked off, with a surly "Good day."
+
+He had never bought but one bill of the other dry goods house, and did
+not like their traveling man; but now he would have bought of Old Nick
+rather than buy of Luce. He went over to Keeler's and again introduced
+himself (the task was getting as disagreeable as it was monotonous),
+saying he wanted to buy some goods. The gentleman made an excuse to go
+to the desk for a moment, and Solomon knew it was to consult the
+reference book as to his standing; having found that satisfactory he
+proceeded to show him through the stock. The goods were not nearly so
+much to his taste as was Luce's stock, but he bought lightly, and
+considered that he was punishing Luce.
+
+After dinner he called again at the hardware store, and this time
+found Mr. Braun there. He was greeted cordially when he gave his name,
+but imagine his feelings when, after a few remarks, Braun said:
+"What's the matter with you people down at North Portage about axes?
+We wrote you that four of the last six you returned were in no way
+covered by warrants; some were broken in solid steel, some were ground
+thin and had to bend, and one had never even been out of your store.
+We can't ask any factory to take back such goods from us, it wouldn't
+be right; and we do not make enough profit on a dozen axes to stand
+such a loss."
+
+"If you give a warrant you ought to stand up to it."
+
+"We do stand up to it, every time; and we do a good deal more than
+that. But you do not stand up to it. You take back goods not covered
+by a warrant and expect us to stand the loss."
+
+"Well, if my customers bring them back I must take them or lose their
+trade."
+
+"That's your business, not mine. I don't care what you take back or do
+not take, but I object to your taking them back and then shifting all
+the burden over to us. We have charged your account with the cost of
+making these axes good."
+
+"Well, that's the last time you'll ever have a chance to do that."
+
+"We can't help that; right is right. It's a small affair, but the
+thing has to stop some time, and it had better be stopped now."
+
+Solomon pulled out his wallet, "How much is my balance here?"
+
+Braun turned him over to the book-keeper, who took his money and gave
+him a receipt. As he walked out he did not hear the remark of Braun to
+the clerk: "He's one of those smart Alecks that have to be sat down on
+occasionally, but I guess I gave him a lesson."
+
+He bought his hardware of another house; he bought his groceries of a
+new firm; he didn't buy any boots and shoes at all, because the clerk
+did not take hold of him just right, and he reached home the next
+morning a tired, soured and disgusted man. He told his wife that he
+had been a fool to spend money when he might have stayed at home and
+bought of traveling men. "I tell you," said he, "a man's a mighty
+sight more independent when buying in his own store. The drummers are
+red hot for orders, and you can squeeze them down. Then you've got
+your stock to look at, and see costs, etc., and the men feel you're
+doing them a favor to give them an order; but, by George, they think
+they're doing you a favor to sell you in their own stores. I'm done
+going to town."
+
+I saw Mr. Smart a few weeks ago, and he gave me his report of his
+trip: "I learned something," he added; "I believe I can make more
+money by having the wholesale houses my friends than I can by making
+them mad at me, and now we get along first rate. I guess Luce is one
+of the best friends I've got, but I was all-fired mad at him that
+time, I tell you. And what made me the hottest was that I felt the old
+man was right."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+A good hotel is a blessing, but the best hotel is still a hotel, and
+can be nothing more. One feels all right until the bellboy has fixed
+the key in the door and gone. Then you begin to realize that you are
+alone. There's but little difference, I imagine, in the feelings of a
+prisoner going into his cell at the close of day and those of a man in
+his lonely bed room in a hotel. There may be noises and voices, even
+songs and laughing, on either side of you, but these only serve to
+show you how lonesome you are.
+
+I dislike to go to my room until I am forced to do so by the hour. I
+want to be among people and to see them about me. I go to my room
+under protest; I turn the key, fix the bolt, look at the window, open
+my valise, and wish I was at home. I think of fires, of sudden
+sickness, of to-morrow's trade, of to-day's orders, and of all the
+pros and cons of business. Through the night I hear scurrying feet in
+the hall, the late arrivals, the early risers, the bell-boy's raps on
+the doors, and finally the chambermaid's clatter, and her occasional
+turn on the knob, as a broad invitation to get up and out of the way
+that she may do her work.
+
+I started out in the morning at B----, determined to do all in my
+power to make a good showing for myself. There is but one gun-store,
+but all the hardware dealers handled something in my line. It is a
+sleepy town. Time was when it had a large trade in the surrounding
+States, but of late it sells near home. A town of its size might and
+ought to support two or three good gun stores. I called on Bell & Co.,
+gave the man who looked most like the buyer my card, and proceeded to
+say a word or two about something else than business.
+
+"We have had some goods from your house," said Mr. Bell, "but we never
+get our orders filled. There's always something left out. I don't like
+it. When I order an article I want it."
+
+Our house had always made a specialty of filling orders complete, and
+I was surprised at what I had just heard. I remarked this, and that I
+was the stock-clerk, and that I feared he was visiting on our heads
+the sins of others.
+
+"No, I am not," said he. "In the last bill we sent you there were two
+items left out;" and he found the bill and showed me our own
+memorandum regarding the items. To be sure they were goods we never
+kept in stock and never intended to. I explained this, but he took the
+ground that, in the first place, a house should keep everything in its
+line, and if they happened to be out of anything should buy it.
+
+I did not attempt to contradict him, for it's a mighty poor time for
+that when you are hunting for an order, but I tried to change the
+conversation into some other channel.
+
+"How is your stock of guns?"
+
+"Full. What do you ask for the Lafoucheaux, twist barrels?"
+
+"Ten fifty."
+
+"Oh, you're way out of reach."
+
+It's a pretty good plan not to disagree with a man at any time, but
+it's especially a wise course about this time.
+
+"I can buy them," said he, "at $9."
+
+"Yes? That beats me; $10.50 is best I can do. Who quotes at $9?"
+
+"Why, Reachum does. So does Tryon's man. Do you know him?"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"He's a lightning fellow; well posted; good natured; sharp as a
+needle, and a mighty sight better than his house. If he was in
+business for himself I'd buy all my goods of him."
+
+Yes, that was interesting; but I had other fish to fry.
+
+"Do you need any Lafoucheaux guns?"
+
+"Yes, if I can buy them right."
+
+"I will meet any price given you by Reachum, Simmons, or Hibbard
+Spencer." I didn't want to; I wanted to get better prices than they
+were quoting to their mail trade, but I proposed to make myself solid
+with him at once.
+
+"Well," said he, "I'm waiting for Clayton. I rather promised him an
+order the last time he was here, and he's to be here in a day or two."
+
+If there's one thing in the wide world that would make a man work for
+an order that is the kind of speech to do it. I had no grudge against
+Clayton, but I was bound to get that order or know why I couldn't. I
+remarked that Clayton was a first-rate fellow.
+
+"Yes, he is; he's quiet and modest, and knows his business; if he only
+let up on his whistle he'd be perfect."
+
+"I didn't know he was a whistler."
+
+"He is; he's always whistling under his breath as if he was trying to
+catch the extra 2 1/2 on cartridges."
+
+"Are you handling the U. M. Co. cartridges?"
+
+"Yes; got them of Simmons. He offered to discount Reachum and I gave
+him the chance. What are you doing on cartridges?"
+
+"60 and 10."
+
+This was cost, but I saw he had a good stock.
+
+"What are you doing on Champion guns?"
+
+"25 and 10."
+
+"And Zulus?"
+
+"$2.40." This was bottom on both these articles, and I would get my
+hair pulled if I sold at these prices, but I was in for it, and
+proposed to keep on. The partner came up to me and asked about
+revolvers, and very soon we were chatting about our line in detail.
+
+If men really want goods, it is often difficult to get them to order.
+They have thought, like Bell, of waiting for a particular man, or they
+fancy there may be advantage in delay, or they have no figures but
+yours and are not sure you are quoting bottom prices. There is a
+disinclination in all men to buy even in good times, and in these days
+there is almost a determination in every dealer's heart that he will
+not order anything at any price, or under any circumstances. Of
+course, when a call comes for something he has not got he realizes
+that he has gone too far.
+
+I spread out my samples, talked my prettiest, sang the special praises
+of my goods, and finally heard the welcome words: "You may send us,"
+etc. When one gets that far, it is his own fault if he does not go on.
+Several times in our work we were interrupted, so that the forenoon
+was pretty well spent when I was through. It was the hour when many
+men go to lunch, and I fancied Mr. Bell to be a man who occasionally
+might enjoy a glass of beer, so I suggested that we go out. He
+assented, and led the way to the nearest place.
+
+What is there in the act of eating or drinking together that draws men
+nearer? It surely does do this, but I don't know why. In his store we
+were in the position of proprietor and drummer, at the beer table we
+were two sociable men.
+
+"I do not often drink," said he, "and there are times when I feel
+provoked at being asked out. Some drummers throw out the invitation as
+if it was part of their samples, others as if they saw I was cross,
+and proposed to spend five cents in beer to make me good natured. I
+occasionally enjoy a glass of beer, and when I don't feel like
+drinking it all Chicago couldn't make me drink."
+
+I remarked that I was pretty much in the same way.
+
+"I've known a good many traveling men who went to the dogs from too
+much treating," said he. "When I began business in '65 one of the best
+salesmen out of New York sold me my first stock. He was paid $5,000 a
+year, and was worth it. He went on a drunk here, but braced up in a
+day or two and went off all right. The last I heard of him he was
+dying in a hospital in Cincinnati of delirium tremens."
+
+"You must have known a good many men in your time?"
+
+"Yes, sir; and knew a good many to go up, and a good many to go down.
+I was in the hardware trade then, and bought of Billy Smythe and John
+Milligan. Look at those boys now! Both of them in splendid positions.
+Poor Hank Woodbury, who sold me thousands of dollars from Sargents',
+went insane and died. I remember a man dropping in one day who looked
+a good deal more like a school teacher than a salesman. His name was
+Bartlett and he was selling chisels. He didn't know much about the
+goods, or about hardware, but he had a frank, open way of confessing
+his ignorance and his prices were all right. Do you know him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"All the wholesalers know Bartlett; he's getting shiny on the head,
+but he can talk Miller's cutlery sweeter than the angels can sing.
+They tell me he's grown rich and lives like a lord; owns an island in
+Long Island Sound, and a yacht and other good things, but he's the
+pleasantest man who comes here."
+
+I like to hear about traveling men who have prospered; they ought to
+get on in the world if any class of men can get on. There may be
+houses that are prosperous in spite of their salesmen, but such houses
+are very few. And the man who can make money for others ought to be
+able to do that for himself, but this does not always follow. I have
+met some traveling men who were once superior salesmen and then
+steadily ran down. Perhaps whisky is back of it, or, perhaps,
+circumstances are against them, but every business man will have known
+just such cases. Mr. Bell and I discussed this until it was time to
+part, and then he said, "Come in again, I may see something else." I
+felt that I had won his good will.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+I left Mr. Bell, and went a square farther down the street to a
+hardware store, where our house had occasionally done some business. I
+was very familiar with the firm's name, and had heard a great many
+stories of Mr. Harris, the buyer. There was an air of push and
+prosperity in the store, and when I inquired for the buyer I was shown
+into the office. There were two men at the desks, and a man lying on a
+lounge; the latter proved to be the man I wanted.
+
+"I don't feel like doing any business just now," said he, "come in
+after dinner."
+
+This was pleasanter than to be told not to come in at all, so I made
+another call on the street, but did no business. As I took my place at
+the dinner table a man opposite me (we two were alone) nodded, and
+asked if I was selling hardware, saying he had seen me come out of Mr.
+Bell's. I told him my business, and he gave me his card: Tibbals, of
+Meriden, Conn. I've seen many handsomer men than Tibbals, but I have
+not often met one who was better company. He had been on the road, so
+he said, for twenty years, selling plated ware, and I expect "Rogers
+Bro., 1847," was tattooed all over him.
+
+"Have you sold Harris?" he asked.
+
+"No, he told me to come in after dinner."
+
+"What a lazy fellow he is! That man is the laziest one on my route. I
+took his order this morning while he lay on a lounge. I asked him if
+he was sick, and he said he was not, but he was tired. Great Scott!
+just think of a man getting tired doing nothing."
+
+I saw Tibbals liked to talk, so I led him on to more details about
+Harris.
+
+"Some folks are lucky," said he. "When I came out here in '65 Harris
+was a traveling man, but the next January he was given an interest.
+The house was old, rich, well known and well liked. They carried
+everything in stock from a bar of iron to a knitting-needle. Harris
+took the books and gradually got to be the buyer. He used to have some
+ambition, but for the ten years last past he takes the world as easy
+as if he was a fat old dog."
+
+"Do they still make money?"
+
+"No, I guess not. They don't buy as they used to, and they are always
+grumbling. But other men have made lots of money here in these twenty
+years and didn't have one-tenth the start Harris had."
+
+"Does he drink?"
+
+"Of course he does. Great Scott! when did you ever see a lazy cuss
+that didn't drink? I've often gone over to the billiard-room and taken
+his order there. I believe, by thunder, he would leave a customer any
+time if a crony came for him to go off on a good time."
+
+I do like to hear an old traveling man. If he has the inclination he
+can give one lots of points. Tibbals went on:
+
+"I ran across a man in Seebarger's the other day that I used to know
+in Toledo and Cleveland. He was stock man twenty years ago and ten
+years ago, and is to-day. He's a first-rate man; solid, reliable,
+competent; he seems to be content, and he used to seem content. But
+how, in the name of H. C. Wilcox, can a man be so satisfied with
+himself? I don't understand it. I should want to be going up or down;
+I wouldn't be a setting hen all my life."
+
+"You have seen many houses go up and down," I said.
+
+"Well, I have. I remember a Detroit concern that in '65 had a nice,
+small trade, but each year seemed to be doing better, until I used to
+think they were about the sharpest set on my route. Business was
+always good, and the goose was away up. One of the partners built the
+nicest house in the city, and lived like a baron. But, by hokey, he's
+on the road selling goods to-day, and another man lives in his nice
+house."
+
+"What brings them down?"
+
+"Big head, almost altogether. They get the big head; they fancy they
+are all Claflins or Stewarts, and they suddenly drop through a hole.
+It's almighty hard to be successful and not take to worshiping
+yourself. And the younger men fall into the trap easier than the old
+ones do or did. Take such a man as Wm. Bingham, of Cleveland; I don't
+see any change in him in twenty years. Yet the house has grown to be a
+very large and very successful one. Did you ever know Tennis?"
+
+"No, I did not."
+
+"In '65, Tennis & Son seemed to be the booming firm in hardware there.
+They were rich and had a big trade. The old man died, the boys ran
+through the business so fast that you couldn't catch it with a gun.
+Oh, I've seen a good many fellows go under in twenty years."
+
+"And you think it's always their own fault?"
+
+"Not always. I've seen some mighty good fellows go down. I remember a
+Toledo concern--good workers, good habits, living economically, but
+'76 pinched them to the wall. I tell you it's hard to see such men
+fail. It's like death to them. They fight against it until it's no use
+fighting longer, and it's pitiful to meet them."
+
+"How is plated ware?" I asked, to be sociable.
+
+"Like all other ware, mighty hard to sell. There's several Rogers, all
+genuine, but I'm the head one. Our goods are the best known and the
+best, but if another 'Rogers' offers 2 1/2 per cent, better, off goes
+my customer. Do you have folks so confounded close?"
+
+I assured him, laughingly, that I had.
+
+"Well," said he, "it's funny. I'm not so all-fired close when I buy a
+suit of clothes; I don't leave a man if he won't throw in a pair of
+suspenders; but dealers will go back on their best friend for a
+tooth-pick. I'd like to sell a line of goods like Chris Morgan's,
+where the price isn't mentioned."
+
+After dinner I called on Harris and found him scolding the boys in the
+store-room. I saw he was irritable, and would have gone out if I
+could, but he saw me and I had to advance.
+
+"D--n those Eastern fellows," said he, vindictively, "I'd like to
+wring their necks."
+
+I had to appear interested and ask why.
+
+"Because they're such infernal fools. Here's a case of 150 pounds just
+in by express with $3.37 charges; could have come by Merchants
+Dispatch for 69 cents. But the fool clerks they have down there have
+the most insane idea about express, and every little while will shove
+something like this in on us."
+
+"Can't you charge it back?"
+
+"D---d if I don't!"
+
+He went into the office and ordered the book-keeper to charge up the
+difference. I could sympathize with him. As stock clerk I had seen
+many a box come in from the East by express that we were in no hurry
+for, and that was never ordered to be so sent. The parties doing most
+of this are not in New York stores, but at the factories. In the small
+towns where most factories are, express and freight bills are paid
+once a month in a lump, and the clerks and shippers do not see the
+cost of each shipment. This makes them careless as to such charges,
+and to receive or send a big box by express is a matter that does not
+need a second thought. But in the cities, where each package is paid
+for when delivered, the clerks soon learn how express charges count
+up, and they do not ship so carelessly.
+
+Perhaps I said something of this to Harris, but he finally turned to
+me sharply and said, "What are you selling?"
+
+I handed him my card again.
+
+"Oh, yes; well, we don't need any."
+
+Goodness! How disappointed I was! I guess I looked it, for he added,
+"Unless you've got some d--d low prices."
+
+I assured him I had, and made up my mind to give him only our ordinary
+figures; I had heard our senior say once that the man who talked this
+way was never a very close buyer.
+
+Just at this moment a very pert young man came in at the office door,
+walked up to Harris, handed out his card in a way that pushed me to
+one side, and said:
+
+"Mr. Harris, we've got the best butcher knife there is in the market."
+
+"Better than Wilson's?"
+
+"Yes, sir; better than anybody's."
+
+"How does your price compare with Wilson's?"
+
+"We are about the same."
+
+"Then I don't want it. Wilson's are good enough for me."
+
+"But I can show you ours is better."
+
+"I don't want any better, unless it's at less price. Wilson's sell
+themselves."
+
+The young man looked crestfallen and soon went his way; I took up my
+story, but instead of asking about this, that or the other article I
+handed him my price-list and asked him to look it through. He
+stretched himself on his lounge, and taking the book was about to open
+it, but stopped to ask, "Have you got a cigar about you?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+When I had given Mr. Harris a cigar and he had lit it, and when he had
+once more resumed his horizontal position on the lounge, I proceeded
+to take his order. He was an easy man to sell. The stock was low on
+some of my goods, and he had a favorable impression of my house, so he
+ordered easily, saying but little about prices until we came to
+cartridges.
+
+"Whose cartridges are you selling?" he asked sharply.
+
+"We handle both the U. M. C. and Winchester."
+
+"No Phoenix?"
+
+"We don't keep them in stock, but I can get them for you if you prefer
+them."
+
+"I won't sell any other."
+
+I was curious to know why.
+
+"Just because I like Hulburt; he's one of the nicest men there is in
+New York, and I'm going to handle his cartridges every time."
+
+"But," said I, and very cautiously, "don't you find some trade that
+will insist on having the other brands?"
+
+"Yes, and they can go somewhere else and get them. I wouldn't buy a U.
+M. C. cartridge if there never was any other. Reachum uses their goods
+to cut prices with, and, d--n 'em! they can sell him, but they can't
+sell me."
+
+I finished the bill, then chatted awhile with him about trade.
+
+"There's no money in business," said he; "times were when you could
+make a profit, but nowadays it is a struggle to see who can sell the
+lowest. There's a revolver that I bought of Tryiton for 53 cents, and
+our men say he has advertised it all over for 55 cents. How the devil
+am I to pay freight and sell for 2 cents profit? There is no such
+idiocy in any business today as in the gun trade. A jobber has to
+fight against every other jobber and the manufacturers too. The U. M.
+C. folks are said to back up Reachum, and Simmons is supposed to have
+Winchester behind him, and away they go, seeing who can cut the most
+and be the biggest fool."
+
+"But is it not so in other lines?"
+
+"No; the prices are not advertised to any such extent as with guns and
+ammunition."
+
+"Then you think the factories could stop it if they chose?"
+
+"Oh, the factories be d--d! Seven-eighths of the factories are managed
+by school-masters. They get up their little schedule of prices just as
+they draw off their 'rules and regulations' for their help, and expect
+the dealers of the country to dance to their tunes."
+
+I thanked him for his kindness and went on my way very well content.
+But when I sat down to copy off the order I was put in quite a
+quandary. Traveling men meet such men as Harris frequently. He gave
+the order because he was friendly to the house, but he had not asked
+for prices on anything. What was I to do? I had several prices, for my
+figures were elastic, to offer trade, according as the buyer was a
+close one or not, and just where to put Harris I did not know. I
+proposed to ask him all I dared and not get into trouble, but to
+decide on what this limit was gave me some study.
+
+The other trade in the city I attended to carefully, and was well
+satisfied with my work. In the evening I started for C. As I went into
+the car there were three men at one end talking rather loud and
+sociably, and I went as near to them as I dared. One of them had
+lately been out to Denver and that section, and was describing to his
+audience the wonderful perpendicular railroads of Colorado, I soon
+found that all three were connected with boots and shoes, but handling
+different grades or styles, so they did not conflict. Of course they
+were from Boston, and equally of course they were rather priggish. The
+talker was not more than 22 or 23 years old, but the immense
+experience he had passed through was more than wonderful, and the old
+chestnuts he got off as having happened to himself were beyond Eli
+Perkins' power of adaptation.
+
+"I had a customer in Peoria," I heard him say, "who picked up a goat
+shoe and said 'he supposed dat was apout tree sefenty-fife.' I told
+him it was $5.25. 'O, tear, tear,' said he, 'can't you make him four
+tollar? Shake dells me: Fader, ton't you puy ofer four tollar. You
+should see my Shake; he is only dwendy-dwo, but he got a young head on
+old shoulters.' I told him that, seeing it was he, I would make the
+price $5, and he ordered twenty-four pairs."
+
+He told this as if it was the most comical story ever heard, and he
+laughed both long and loud over it, as did his two friends.
+
+"When are you going home?" one asked him.
+
+"Next week; been out over two months; had a big trip, but I don't
+expect to do any more traveling."
+
+"No! Why not?"
+
+"I'm going to be married."
+
+"No! Who to? Are you telling the truth?"
+
+"Yes, I am; honest; going to marry the boss's daughter. She and I used
+to go to school together, and I honestly believe she made the advances
+to me, rather than I to her. Oh, yes; I'm all fixed; going to stay in
+the office and help the boss."
+
+I wondered what kind of a girl the "boss's" daughter could be, to
+marry such an ass as this, and I would have been glad to see the
+photograph of her that he passed to his friends, but I made up my mind
+that the "boss" was getting a rare prize in a son-in-law.
+
+Sitting in the smoking room of the hotel that evening I heard some men
+mention names that were familiar to me, and I discovered the talker to
+be a groceryman.
+
+"If our goods are close," said he, "the sales are large and folks have
+to buy. I heard H. K. Thurber say that the best year's business that
+he ever did was on a net profit of 1-3/4 percent."
+
+"Phew! How much did he sell?"
+
+"Eighteen or twenty millions."
+
+"I've been in Thurber's store," said another, "and I tell you they
+have things down fine. I think H. K. Thurber had the best head on him
+of any man I ever saw. He was quick as lightning; his judgment was
+good; he had no soft spot for any one, and he didn't tell his plans to
+any one. But Frank, his brother, seems to be just as successful, and
+yet is very different."
+
+"He's the politician, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes; he was a Greenbacker, and anti-monopoly, and lots of other
+things. Some of these days he'll be Mayor of New York, or go to
+Congress, and he'll be heard from. His public life is profitable now,
+for it helps to advertise Thurber's business."
+
+"Well," said another, "You've got to get up mighty early to get ahead
+of Hoyt in Chicago. They don't sell as many dollars, perhaps, as
+Thurber, but they have sand, and they don't put it in their sugar,
+either."
+
+"I like groceries. A dealer has to buy them, whether times are good or
+bad. Folks must eat."
+
+"And take medicine?"
+
+"Yes, and take medicine. And, by the way, do you know that the grocers
+are giving druggists a lively time on medicines? They are. Thurber has
+a drug department, and advertises them at 'a grocer's profit.' Lots of
+others have gone in, and the day will soon be here when a man can buy
+his sugar and quinine in the same place."
+
+"What will druggists do?"
+
+"What have they been doing the last ten years? Sell teas and coffees,
+cigars and tobaccos, and fancy goods. Look at a drug store in
+holidays, and it is full of plush cases, placques, bronzes, and goods
+that were supposed to belong to jewelers. The bars are dropping down
+in every line."
+
+"Business is done in queer ways," said a man who was sitting near me.
+"Tobacco men give away guns in order to sell their tobacco; coffee is
+sold by giving plated ware, baking powder by glassware, boots and
+shoes by giving dolls and sleds, ready-made clothing by a prize of a
+Waterbury watch, and soap by giving jewelry. Nowadays a dealer don't
+ask you about the quality of your goods, but about the scheme you've
+got to sell them. It's a demoralizing way of doing business, and
+ruining trade."
+
+"That's so! That's so!" was echoed from all sides.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+Stepping into a hardware store early the next morning, after
+introducing myself I was handed a letter sent to me in the care of the
+firm. I was very glad to receive it, and accepted the pleasantly given
+invitation to sit down and read it.
+
+No man should greet a letter with more welcome than a traveling
+salesman. It is a tie that connects him with home, he who is so wholly
+disconnected. He is always wondering what his house may think of this
+sale, or that price, or this failure to sell, and be he never so sure
+that he has done well, still the assurance from home that they
+recognize his success makes him happier.
+
+Houses differ much in their manner of writing to their traveling men.
+A friend of mine who lately made a change told me his principal reason
+for leaving the old house was the letters they wrote him. "I never cut
+a price in the world, unless I had to do it to meet a competitor; but
+if I did it, no matter for what cause, I was sure to be reminded that
+I had not been sent out to 'cut,' but to make money. Yet when I came
+home and explained why I did it, I was told I had done the right
+thing. But they nagged me the next trip just the same, and I grew
+tired of it."
+
+I did not find any such letter as that. It was a hearty commendation
+of my work and braced me up for the future. "We miss you in the
+stock," the letter read; "but we can put up with all that while you do
+so well on the road."
+
+I spoke of this to a traveling man. "Well," said he, "I scarcely ever
+hear from my house from one end of the trip to the other. Our goods
+don't vary in price very much, and I'm not much of a hand at writing
+letters. I send in my orders when I've any to send, and when I've none
+I save postage. But I know men who have a printed form, and they have
+to fill one out and send home every night, orders or no orders. That's
+too much like being a sleeping-car conductor for me."
+
+After reading my letter I turned to Mr. Shively with determination to
+sell him a good bill. But I saw he had a customer, and kept out of the
+way, but not too far to hear the conversation.
+
+"That," said Shively, "is a better gun than the ordinary
+Lafoucheaux--a good deal better. I know you can buy of Reachum and
+Shiverhim & Gaily for $7.65, but there is all of $2 difference in the
+goods, and the man who should appreciate this the quickest is the
+retailer."
+
+"But I can't get a cent more for this gun than for the others; buyers
+will not discriminate."
+
+"You give them no opportunity. You take it for granted that they will
+go to the lowest-priced places, so you insist upon buying the
+lowest-priced goods, but I tell you, Mr. Thompson, you are making a
+mistake. A certain proportion of every community runs after the lowest
+prices; a large majority seek good value for their money, and a small
+percentage, who are fools, buy only high-priced goods. Then again, a
+share only of the trade will come to you or me. Our competitors, no
+matter how mean they may be, will have their own friends, and, try as
+we may, we can only draw a certain share of the trade."
+
+"That's so."
+
+"Of course it is so. And the dealer who looks these things squarely in
+the face and acts accordingly is the one who succeeds. I remember when
+I was younger I expected to do all the business in my line here. There
+was a run on Parker's gun. The list price was $50; they cost us
+$37.50. Every one was asking the list, but making a small cut if
+necessary. I had a fair trade in them, but I concluded I would do
+more, so I advertised the price $45. This did not accomplish what I
+expected, so I came down to $42.50, and finally to $40. I sold a few
+more guns than I otherwise would have done, but I did not make one
+dollar more of gross profit. In order to attract a few extra buyers I
+had been cutting down prices to men who would have bought of me,
+whether or no, and I stopped it."
+
+"I remember my first Parker gun," said Thompson; "I called a man into
+my store to look at it, one who talked as if he knew all that was
+worth knowing about guns. He opened it, looked through it, sighted it,
+etc., then asked the price. I quoted $50. 'That settles it,' says he,
+'I wouldn't have it; a good gun can't be bought for any such money,'
+and he dropped it as if it was a hot brick. The next time I showed it
+I asked $75, and I sold it at $65."
+
+"Yes," said Shively, "the fools still live; I'm one of 'em. I suppose
+I do things just as bad as that every day, but I don't do it
+knowingly. Here's this craze over Smith & Wesson's revolvers. A man,
+for some good reason of his own, wants a revolver in the house. He
+hopes he shall never have to shoot with it, but for fear he may need
+one he buys it. The chances are ninety-nine in one hundred that he has
+never been a marksman, or if he was he is so much out of practice that
+he could not hit a door off hand, and with his nerves steady. I show
+him a good revolver at $2.50, or a double action bull-dog at $3. But
+he asks, 'Have you Smith & Wesson's?' Of course I have; single action
+$9.35; double-action, $10.35. I explain that the cheap one is as safe
+to the shooter as this is; that the chances are not one in a hundred
+that a man can jump out of bed excitedly and hit a burglar off-hand;
+that no burglar, hearing a shot, waits to be informed whose make of
+revolver is used, and that practically the cheaper pistol is the most
+sensible for him to buy. But he has a foolish idea that he is going to
+be a much more formidable fellow with a Smith & Wesson under his head,
+and he takes that. And because of just such idiotic men Smith & Wesson
+can ask a big price for their goods."
+
+ I was much interested in that talk, and sorry when the two men
+ separated. But I was there to sell Shively some goods, and I went at
+ it right heartily.
+
+"I am rather tired of the gun business," said he, "and would drop that
+branch quite willingly. It is being managed on the basis of brag
+rather than that of brains. Any fool can sell a revolver at 92 cents
+that cost him 90, or a gun for $7.50 that cost him $7. No brains are
+required to do that. The poorest salesman I have on the road sells the
+most goods and makes me the least money. The gun business has got into
+the hands of men who have just brains enough to run a ten-cent counter
+store."
+
+"Is it not about as bad in other lines?" I asked.
+
+"No, not quite. There is much more detail to other lines. The gun
+business is compact and the line small. Consumers pick up names of
+makers quicker, and post themselves easier. A man buys a pistol or gun
+but once or twice in his life, and he gives the matter considerable
+study and shops around a good deal. Fifteen years ago Kittridge of
+Cincinnati used to be the champion cutter, but either he is out of
+business or has changed his tactics; now St. Louis and Chicago have
+gone into the postal card business and struck the 'Me Big Injun!'
+attitude. Here is a card one of my men sent in from a little town
+to-day. Shot quoted 80 bags $1.16! The man can't buy 80 bags in 80
+months, and the house sending the card to him knows it, but it gives
+him a basis to work on us, and hurts us without helping anyone."
+
+"Yet you buy of these card men?"
+
+"No, I don't, d--n them; I'd shut up shop sooner. There is no reason
+in the world for wholesale gun stores; the business ought to be
+handled by the wholesale hardware trade, and ought to be done in a
+legitimate way on a legitimate profit. But some idiotic manufacturer,
+either being hard up for money, or envious of a competitor, goes to
+one of these gun houses and offers a special cut price, and within
+twenty-four hours every little cross-roads dealer is advised of the
+cut."
+
+"I heard a man swearing just about the same way about screws," I said.
+
+"Screws? Oh, yes; that's so. Screws have been about as mean. One
+factory used the hardware trade of the country to club a competitor,
+and thousands of dollars of values were wiped out in the operation. I
+had, say $1,000 worth of screws, bought at 75 percent off. Russell &
+Erwin wanted to hurt the American, so down went screws to 80. That
+didn't settle the business, and next they went to 90 off. What was
+worth $1,000 at 75 off was worth but $400 now. And this cut was
+advertised everywhere, so that retailers insisted on getting it. The
+orders as sent in were not filled, and retailers' orders on us were
+much larger than before. By and by we had no stock, and then, without
+any reason other than their own sweet will, prices went up again. It
+was a most outrageous piece of business from beginning to end."
+
+"I am glad all the bad work is not done in guns," said I, "but how is
+your stock? I think bull-dogs are going to advance."
+
+"I suppose they are; look at this letter."
+
+He handed me a letter from a New York house which read:
+
+New York,----, 188--.
+
+Messrs. Rhodes & Shively--_Gentlemen:_ I have entered your order
+for 100 "Blank" Bull-Dogs at $2.85, prices guaranteed. Please send on
+specifications. A combination is about to be formed among the
+manufacturers, and prices will advance to $3.25. Yours respectfully,
+
+F.B. Combaway.
+
+This was news to me, so I opened the letter I had just received from
+home and read to him:
+
+"We have just got in a large lot of 'Blank' bull-dogs and you may cut
+prices to $2.65."
+
+"Well," said he, "what the devil does this man mean by sending me such
+a letter?"
+
+"He undoubtedly believed there was going to be an advance and booked
+you for 100 revolvers."
+
+"What is your price on cartridges?"
+
+"Fifty-nine per cent."
+
+"There is another smart combination. The cartridge association puts my
+competitor in the A class and gives him 50 and 10 off, but we, who
+have to sell in the same town and to the same men, can only get 50.
+It's the most childish and sickly combination that I ever saw.
+Manufacturers seem to sit up nights to see what infernal fools they
+can make of themselves. Now I tell you there are only two classes of
+dealers--wholesalers and retailers. If a man is a wholesaler he should
+have wholesaler's prices, and if he isn't he shouldn't. But your smart
+Aleck manufacturers want to rate them, as Bradstreet does, and give 12
+1/2 off to the A class, 10 off to B, 7 1/2 to C, 5 to D, and list to
+E."
+
+"But a man who buys 1,000 dozen axes ought to buy for less than he who
+buys but 100 dozen?"
+
+"Not a bit of it. If both men sell at wholesale they ought to be on
+one level, otherwise the smaller buyer can not hope to succeed. And I
+tell you it is much more to the interest of manufacturers that there
+should be six small houses in a town than one extra large house. Your
+large buyer is autocratic; he can break the market, and often does it
+to his own hurt, as well as to the damage of every one else. The
+average buyer is content to buy as low as his competitor, or if he
+gets a little inside price, keeps it to himself, lest his competitor
+shall know it."
+
+"You seem to have figured it out pretty thoroughly."
+
+"I have, and I know what I'm talking about. But of all the silly
+things manufacturers do, they never get quite so absurd as when they
+undertake to advertise."
+
+"Please explain."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+"I can explain what I mean by showing you this letter," said Mr.
+Shively. "Here is a line of goods I proposed to handle, and wrote the
+manufacturer for prices. He has advertised them largely, but has not
+worked up a very large sale as yet, though he has succeeded in making
+them pretty well known. He writes me he will discount 35 and 5 per
+cent., and adds: 'Please do not quote or sell at better than 30 and
+5.' What does he take me for? The list is $12; 35 and 5 off brings the
+net price to $7.41, and if I sold at 30 and 5 off, I get $7.98, or 6
+per cent. on the investment, and I pay freight out of that! But this
+manufacturer thinks I am liable to cut under $7.98, so kindly cautions
+me against doing it. He must have a mighty queer idea of a merchant's
+profits."
+
+"What would you do if you were in the manufacturer's place, to begin
+with?" I asked.
+
+"First decide on a fair retail price. Every article must first be
+judged on this basis. It is not 'What will the jobber pay for this?'
+that decides the cost of goods, but 'What will this retail at?' Having
+decided this, then settle on a discount from this price that will pay
+the retailer a fair profit, and in quoting prices to the retail trade
+stick pretty close to this. Then the jobber should have a margin of 15
+per cent. at least, and yet be able to sell retailers at my price."
+
+"But suppose the goods will not allow all this."
+
+"They must allow it if they are to be handled by the trade in a
+regular way, and they will always allow it if proportioned aright; but
+what I complain of is that so many manufacturers are unable to
+comprehend the jobber's position. Here is a sheep-shear that is
+advertised to consumers at $1.25 per pair; the maker says the lowest
+he can sell at and make a small margin is $8 per dozen. There is a
+good margin between $8, factory price, and $15, consumer's price, but
+how is it divided? A retailer is quoted the goods at $8.65 and the
+jobber at $8. Don't you see that common sense would say $10 to the
+retailer and $8 to the jobber? If the jobber wants to sell at less
+than $10 let him do so (he is sure to do it), but the manufacturer
+should not."
+
+"Some houses ignore the jobbers altogether; what would you do with
+them?"
+
+"They are all right; I have no fault to find with them; I can meet all
+of such competition, and without worrying. No factory can handle my
+trade so cheaply as I can. A great deal of my trade no factory can
+reach. Salesmen get higher salaries from the factories than we pay.
+They only get the trade they drum; there is very little of mail orders
+from the small trade sent East; what they need they want quickly. Both
+Russell & Erwin and Sargent & Co. have drummed the retail trade for
+years, but they have done jobbers no harm, and of late are very
+anxious to get the jobbing trade. I don't fear the drummers from the
+factories, but I do dread the low quotations they scatter around,
+because I must meet their figures."
+
+Mr. Shively seemed pleased at having a good listener, and had talked
+as if enjoying himself. While I was very much interested in his views,
+still it is probable I should have acted just the same even if I had
+cared nothing about what he said. No higher compliment is paid to a
+man than to place him over you as your teacher. I left him after
+getting a fair order from him, and passed into a large retail store.
+
+That undefined line between the large retailer and the small jobber is
+a delicate one on which to tread. It is rarely that a retailer will
+buy of his home jobbers. Every jobber will sell more or less at
+retail; will tread on the toes of his retail neighbor, and the latter
+has a special desire to buy as low as the jobber does. Much of his
+stock is bought at such prices; on a large part he is assured by the
+salesman that he is getting as good prices as the largest jobber in
+the land. If one is not direct from headquarters it is doubtful ground
+to walk on, but it has to be taken care of.
+
+I handed my card to the man whose face seemed to me to show authority
+and ownership, and I was not mistaken.
+
+"Guns!" said he, "we don't handle guns."
+
+"But you do revolvers and cartridges." I had seen them in the
+show-case.
+
+"Yes, but we don't sell them. The jobbing houses are retailing at
+wholesale prices, and we poor retailers stand no chance."
+
+"You must retail at wholesale prices, too. You can buy about as close
+as they do, and you can do retail business as cheaply as they can."
+
+"Yes, but don't you see, no matter what our prices are they are retail
+prices, and for the same reason their's are wholesale; the idiotic
+public loves to be fooled, and will fool itself if no one else takes
+the job. What are cartridges worth?"
+
+"Two dollars and ten cents per 1,000 for 22s."
+
+"Why, I can buy here in town for that!"
+
+"I presume you can; we make no money on cartridges; neither do the
+jobbers here or anywhere else."
+
+"Well, if you can't beat the houses here, how do you expect to sell
+goods?"
+
+"Oh, cartridges are but one item in a very long list, and, profit or
+no profit, people must have them."
+
+I always expect a retailer to tell me that I must beat his home
+jobber, or he will not buy of me. But I know that this is not often
+true. He will not buy of the home jobbers at the same price, for he
+feels that he is building up his competitor. I have seen a great many
+jobbers who had spent time and money trying to get control of all the
+trade in their own city, but I never saw one who did not finally give
+up in disgust. It is not human nature to be willing to help build up a
+man who is in any way your competitor, and often you would rather pay
+a trifle more elsewhere than buy of him. This may not be "business,"
+but it is human nature, and there are many places where the latter is
+by far the stronger.
+
+I undid my sample roll and showed my revolver samples to Mr. R. Almost
+every revolver reminded him of something, and I listened to his
+stories with the interest of a man who wanted an order.
+
+"There is no trade in the world so mean as this," said he. "People
+come in here for a revolver, and I am almost sure they mean mischief
+with it. What am I to do? My refusal to sell one will not prevent
+their getting it, yet I hate to sell to them. Of course a large
+majority of those I sell are sold to people whom I know, and I know
+they buy them for proper use. But a woman will slip in here and slyly
+ask for a revolver, and I am wondering if she is going to commit
+murder or suicide. Many a time a man looks so woe begone as he buys a
+pistol that I make some excuse to keep him from loading it here for
+fear he will blow out his brains right in the store."
+
+"Did anything like that ever happen with you?"
+
+"No, not with me, but it has happened. I read of a man going into a
+gun store, buying a revolver, asking the clerk to load it (doing it
+all calmly), and then placing it at his temple and falling down dead.
+I believe I would go crazy if such a thing were to happen in my store,
+and I always worry more or less for fear it may. It's a mean business
+at the best; I wish there were no revolvers made. What do you get for
+this?"
+
+"Two eighty-five."
+
+"Well, send us six."
+
+I sold him a fair bill, and then spent the afternoon trying to sell
+two other large retailers, but without success. One of the men was
+snappish, the other good-natured but full of goods. I did want, very
+badly, to get a little order out of them, but when I went to supper I
+had nothing from them. After supper I went down to the cross-grained
+man's store determined to get so well acquainted with him that I could
+meet him again under different auspices.
+
+He looked at me as if he expected to be pestered in some new spot, but
+I put him at rest by saying I had a little time to lounge and thought
+I could do it there. At this he dropped some of his frowns and began
+to be sociable. We talked until I was sure it was long after his
+shutting-up time, so I bade him good night, saying I was going off in
+the night.
+
+"Don't you ever drink a glass of beer or wine?" he asked.
+
+"Try me!"
+
+"All right; let us lock up and go down the street a block."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+I think a merchant who does not want to buy usually feels uneasy to
+have a traveling man about the store. He keeps up all the barriers
+that he can, so that he shall not be led farther than he intends to
+go. If he becomes very friendly it may be all the harder for him to
+say "no" by and by, so he keeps up an uncomfortable stiffness and is
+glad to see the salesman go. I have seen this, or thought I saw it,
+often and often in my own case. I could not get the dealer to be
+friendly with me while I was in his store, but perhaps I met him in
+the hotel and found him cordial and sociable.
+
+The retail dealer who had invited me to take a glass of beer with him
+had been rather stiff in his own store, but the moment he turned the
+key in the lock he seemed to throw away his coldness and became very
+talkative. We sat down at a table and our beer was brought.
+
+I doubt if any traveling man ever became a drunkard, because of the
+drinking necessary to be done among his customers. A little of it
+appears to be really necessary. But this little would lead no one to
+excess. The men who drink to excess are those who patronize bars with
+other traveling men, and who drink alone. The temptation is great.
+Every hotel has its bar; all introductions and intimacies have to be
+sealed with a drink, and the man who does not feel bright, or fancies
+he does not, has a row of bright bottles beckoning to him to "brace
+up" with a glass of their contents.
+
+I do not wonder that the pulpits and all thoughtful people cry out
+against the drinking of liquor. Every traveling man's experience, the
+tales he could tell of the financial and moral ruin of men from
+drinking, and men who are usually the most intelligent and who ought
+to be the most influential, are all in the line of the injunction to
+taste not the accursed stuff. I say this after years of experience; I
+felt it on my first trip, but I was so anxious to ingratiate myself
+into the good graces of every man I wanted to sell to that I drank
+with customers when asked, and when it seemed wise invited them to
+indulge with me.
+
+Do you say that the foolishness of this was that I must continue it
+each trip and do more each time? No, you are not correct. I had less
+occasion for it the next and each succeeding trip. I was able to meet
+the men on a different footing after the first trip, and I had but
+little use for liquor as an engine to help business.
+
+A man must needs, too, be very cautious in inviting men to indulge. If
+it is done in any way so that it appears to be to help make sales it
+will do more harm than good. A certain class of traveling men will
+invite a merchant to go out and get a drink as if they were offering
+him a new paper collar, or to pay for his having his boots blacked.
+Their manner seems to say, "I must buy you a drink and then I'm going
+to stick you on an order." They disgust where they expected to please.
+
+Yet, as I have said before, men seem to come close together over a
+glass of beer. My friend had positively refused to buy a dollar's
+worth from me, and I had put him down as rather a surly fellow, but as
+we sat there over our beer he chatted about himself, his business, and
+his partner, as if we were old friends.
+
+"I have been seventeen years in trade," said he, "and we have been
+tolerably successful. I began with $1,500, and I suppose I am worth
+$35,000, but I work fourteen hours a day, and I have to carry all the
+responsibility on my shoulders. My partner waits on customers when he
+is in the store, but when he wants to go out driving or to go anywhere
+else, he goes. I never let him do anything but he makes a bull. He
+contracted for advertising the other day, $300 worth, in a paper that
+will never do us three cents' worth of good. We have the meanest kind
+of competition here; every wholesale house retails, too, and retails a
+good many goods at wholesale prices. They buy in larger quantities
+than we do, and of course can buy cheaper, and they look upon their
+retail profit as so much clear gain. I am tired of the business, and
+if I could sell out I would get into the jobbing trade."
+
+There it was. The man who wants to sell out is one of the most
+numerous men that exist. But it was my business then, and it has
+always been my business since, to listen sympathetically to all such
+tales, and to promise to have an eye out for any possible purchaser.
+
+"We don't do much in your line," he continued, "because men don't come
+to a stove store to buy revolvers, but if I don't sell out I'm going
+to do some wholesaling, and see if I can't eventually work up into
+wholesale exclusively."
+
+This was a much more promising opening for me, and I led his fancy
+over a bed of roses to the not distant day when he might put up that
+fraudulent sign--"No goods at retail." And I was reminded of a very
+cheap pistol that we had that I would sell him at 52 cents, which he
+could job to any country dealer at 75 cents. I don't know if it was
+the beer or my eloquence, but I sold him fifty then and there, and
+added some other goods to the sale, so that my evening was not wholly
+wasted.
+
+I saw him not long ago. He is still retailing at the old stand and
+still grumbling about his partner, but we have been the best of
+friends since our first evening together.
+
+As I ate my breakfast the next morning I overheard two men at my table
+talk about trade, and I quietly listened.
+
+"It only takes a little thing to help out a line of goods or to kill
+them," said one. "Nimick & Brittan got out that burglar-proof
+attachment on their locks and just kept themselves going by it."
+
+"Is Brittan on the road now?"
+
+"Guess not. The Big Three, Brittan, Rashgo, and Bond, work some kind
+of a syndicate, though, and make a good thing out of it. I met Brittan
+twenty years ago or so. He was a hard worker, good-natured, understood
+human nature and was a success. He represented several concerns, and
+used to make ten or twelve thousand clear a year. Finally he got into
+the lock factory."
+
+"Most traveling men are crazy to get into something."
+
+"Yes; that's so. We think if we had a shebang of our own we'd just
+make things fly; but we miss it oftener than we hit it when we do get
+the factory."
+
+"You're right. The man on the road with a good trade and a good salary
+has a pretty good thing of it."
+
+"Well, some men expect to strike it rich by silver stock. Do you know
+Al Bevins?"
+
+"The sleigh-bell man? Yes, I know him well."
+
+"Has he told you about the silver stock?"
+
+"No."
+
+"He has been investing in Deming's--"
+
+"Oh, d--n Deming! He's a nuisance with his silver stock."
+
+"Yes, but he gets the boys in all the same. Henley has bought a lot in
+Providence on the strength of his investment, and Deacon Hall, of
+Wallingford, will buy out Wallace when his dividends come in. Bevins
+says it's better than sleigh-bells, and Al knows how to run a
+factory."
+
+"Still, some of the men at the factories are born idiots. You can't
+teach them anything. If the managers were compelled to make one trip a
+year they'd find out a good deal. Here's my ax trade. I've been cussed
+from one end of the trip to the other. My orders for October shipment
+were billed about January 1. And it's the same way year after year. I
+swear, I often wonder that I get any orders at all! They damn me in
+February, and yet they give me new orders in May. But it is sickening
+to hear the same story over and over, year after year."
+
+"What excuse do they offer at home?"
+
+"Oh, it's never two years alike. One year the streams dry up; then the
+foreman is discharged; then they booked too many orders."
+
+"A little thing happened that riled me when I was last home. A
+customer ordered a certain spoon, using a special number of his own,
+on the 18th of May. I was in the shop late in June, and the shipping
+clerk asked me what spoon that was! Here he had held the order six
+weeks before he took steps to find out what the man wanted. I gave him
+a piece of my mind."
+
+"Talking of spoons, do you ever run across Kendrick, of Mix & Co.? I
+traveled with him a few years ago."
+
+"He sticks close to the factory. There is an instance where the
+traveling man took the management of the factory to good purpose. I
+don't believe there is a better-managed business anywhere. Kendrick
+has become a deacon in the church, with a weather eye out for fast
+horses."
+
+"Talking of spoons reminds me of Father Parmelee, of Wallingford. Do
+you know him?"
+
+"Who, Sam? Yes, indeed."
+
+"We were in Detroit together, and the way Parmelee talked William
+Rogers was enough to drive a man crazy. He's just chock full of
+William Rogers, and I'll bet he'll want Rogers on his plated
+grave-stone."
+
+"Parmelee is one of the kindest-hearted men on the road. I never heard
+him say a bitter word against any one; I never knew him to bore any
+one; I never heard a merchant speak other than kindly of him. He
+travels for a big house, but they probably do not know how much of
+their business in the West is due to Parmelee's push and tact. He has
+been a long time traveling, and I always like to meet him."
+
+When the two men went away I ruminated over what they had said, and I
+laid up several points for my own use. I was especially glad to hear
+them praise other traveling men. It's a mighty good sign of any man to
+find him generous in his praise of others. I thought this all over as
+I started down the street to find Shull & Cox and try to sell them 100
+bull-dogs. I caught their sign and marched boldly in, wishing there
+was a law on the books that would compel every dealer to give a
+salesman an order whether he needed goods or not.
+
+A young clerk was at work near the door, so I asked if the buyer was
+in.
+
+"That's him over there with that drummer."
+
+"Is it Mr. Shull or Mr. Cox?"
+
+"That's Shull; Cox won't be here for an hour yet; he don't get up till
+the school bell rings."
+
+I saw the young man was talkative, so I prodded for more information.
+"Who is that drummer?"
+
+"I don't know his name; he's selling revolvers from More & Less, of
+New York."
+
+This was fun for me, and I wished I was out of the way, and out of the
+town. I concluded that the best thing I could do would be to interview
+some one else immediately, and I started off at once.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+I think a man often does better work when he is spurred on by anxiety.
+I had seen More & Less's man in the store across the street, so I
+determined I would do my best at Bingham's and not get whipped out of
+the town. Mr. Bingham met me as if he wished I was somewhere else, but
+I was too eager to sell to care very much about his manner. I told him
+my story as well as I could, and insisted that if he needed anything
+in my line I could do him good.
+
+"I don't need anything," said he, "but what is all this talk of the M.
+H. & Co. revolver?"
+
+"It is coming into prominence," I said, "and Jim Merwin gave it a big
+boom in Cleveland the other day. McIntosh took him before the Police
+Board, and they say Merwin outdid Buffalo Bill. McIntosh says the
+Chief of Police took a Smith & Wesson, and Merwin a M. H. & Co., and
+each tried to shoot the other with empty shells, Jim grabbed the
+Chief, emptied his revolver of the shells and rammed the pistol in his
+ear until the Chief yelled for mercy. Merwin gave such a war dance
+that they had to call out the fire department to cool him down. He
+secured the city's order for an outfit for the police, and M. H. & Co.
+stock has gone up since then."
+
+"Do you sell them?"
+
+"Yes, at factory prices."
+
+"Pho! All you men talk factory prices."
+
+"I mean factory prices."
+
+"Well," said he, "I'm going to buy of Simmons after this; he beats the
+factories. His New England man--"
+
+"His what?"
+
+"His New England man. Didn't you know he had opened a Boston office
+and now drums New England?"
+
+"I hadn't heard of that."
+
+"Oh, yes. St. Louis is going to run the country on hardware hereafter
+and on guns. Simmons' New England man says they do a big business
+there; dealers buy bills of $8.87 down. Their New York office isn't
+open yet, but it's coming; they want Sam Haines as manager, or J. B.
+Sargent. They do things up big down there."
+
+"How many M. & H. revolvers can I send you?"
+
+"Don't want any now; just asked out of curiosity."
+
+This was discouraging, but I opened my price-book at A, and called his
+attention to every item in it, but to everything received the same
+answer, "Got it." I began to get desperate.
+
+"Look here," said Bingham, "you seem to be excited, young man. I like
+to see a man work, but if a fellow don't want anything, he don't, and
+that's the end of it. I never bought a dollar from your house, and
+your prices are no better than others."
+
+But I wanted an order. Whether he needed goods or not was no concern
+of mine; I wanted an order and I was determined to get one if such a
+thing were possible. Finally I struck Flobert rifles. "Look here," I
+said, "I have a special price on Flobert's target rifles--$2.10 by the
+case--but I will give you a cut even on that; I will make them $2, and
+now I want you to give me an order."
+
+"Two dollars," he said, as if turning it over in his mind; "$2, eh?
+I've a mind to go and see Madley with you."
+
+"Who is Madley?"
+
+"He's a clothing man, and chain lightning about offering gifts to
+purchasers. He has run cows, watches, pianos, and lager beer; maybe
+he'd take hold of rifles."
+
+"Very well," said I, "let's us go see him. What price shall I quote
+him?"
+
+"You needn't do any quoting; I'll make prices and you expatiate on the
+goods."
+
+We started down the street to Madley's, and I was introduced to the
+gentleman, a fussy, garrulous little man with an extremely red face.
+Bingham opened the ball, and I never listened to more talented
+drumming than he did that morning.
+
+"Chris," said he, "this young man is offering target rifles at a cut
+price that knocks anything ever known. The boys have been buying them
+very freely of late, and they are popular. I fancied they might hit
+you as a gift with a boy's suit. If you can handle them I don't want
+any profit, but am getting other goods from him, and you can ship with
+my goods."
+
+"What are they worth?"
+
+"Well, you have as much of an idea of the worth of a rifle as any one
+else has; suppose you were going to buy one for your boy, what would
+you expect to pay?"
+
+"I don't know anything about them."
+
+"Oh, you've got some idea and I want to get it, for you will not be
+very different from the average man in your estimate of cost."
+
+"Oh, d---n it, say $10; but I can't handle any such goods."
+
+"We don't ask you to at $10. But that is about the average idea
+regarding price. Now, Chris, this man's price is $3.12."
+
+It struck me this was getting mighty close to "cost!"
+
+"Eh, $3.12! How the devil can they make it at that?"
+
+"Oh, they make it. How they do it is none of our concern. It would
+make you a very popular gift and the boys would go wild over it."
+
+Madley turned to me. "Is that your bottom price?"
+
+"I gave Mr. Bingham my very best figures."
+
+"How many have you got?"
+
+"Any amount you want."
+
+He called two of his young men, and after a conference with them came
+up to Bingham and said: "Bingham, I can't afford to let you make a
+profit on these rifles. You wouldn't come up here if you were not
+making something. The idea is a good one, and you may send your boy up
+and get the best suit of clothes I've got, but I'm going to figure on
+rifles before I order."
+
+"All right, Chris, go in." He turned on his heel to go out, and I
+followed. When we were on the sidewalk he said: "I don't give it up
+yet, but I can play bluff as well as he can."
+
+"You asked too much advance, I am afraid."
+
+"Oh, I know him. I'll go for him by and by."
+
+And he did. I called in the afternoon and took his order for 100
+rifles, and he showed me a written order for them from Madley at
+$2.62. To these he added several other items, making a very nice bill.
+I have always noticed that, however much a man did not want any goods,
+the moment you get him started there is but little difficulty in then
+getting his order for some of the very things he told you he was not
+needing.
+
+During this time I had no fear of the other salesman. My prices were
+down so low I cared for no one, but I concluded I would go back to Mr.
+Shull's, and see if anything was left for me there. He happened to be
+at work at the shelves, which is a place I like to find a man at, and
+I explained that I was in early in the day but saw he was engaged.
+
+"Yes," said he, "I had a gun man here all forenoon. He sold me all I
+needed in your line. He says bull-dogs are going up."
+
+"I had not heard of it."
+
+"What are you selling at?"
+
+What should I say? If he had bought I didn't care to quote a special
+price, and I did not want to name a high price, for that might give
+him a bad impression of the house in the future.
+
+It is a difficult place in which a salesman finds himself, this
+quoting prices to a man who has just bought. The temptation is always
+to name a very low rate, perhaps even to go below your lowest selling
+price, for the purpose of making the man feel that you would have been
+a better man to buy from, but this is a two-edged sword, and I have
+not cared to handle it. I concluded it would pay here to be frank.
+
+"It is possible there is some advance of which I don't know," I said,
+"but my price has been $2.75 to $2.85, according to quantity."
+
+"That's what I bought at."
+
+I opened up on rifles, found him entirely out, and showed him my order
+from Bingham for 100.
+
+"What in Sam Hill is he going to do with 100?"
+
+I did not enlighten him. I said: "Oh, every lad buys a target rifle
+nowadays."
+
+"What price do you get?"
+
+"Two dollars and ten cents by the case."
+
+"Case? How many's a case?"
+
+"Thirty-six."
+
+"I don't want any case. If you want to send me a dozen at that you
+may."
+
+I wanted to, and got his order for another item or two, and left him,
+feeling I had done pretty well.
+
+This showing one merchant the order you have taken from his neighbor
+is one of the easiest things in the world to do, but it is not always
+a trump card. Still, it has a powerful influence in a majority of
+cases. The best buyer who lives has times of doubting if his judgment
+is infallible, and he is glad to brace it up by comparing with the
+judgment of others. This he is able to do through having salesmen tell
+of the orders given by other buyers, and be he never so smart, he very
+often falls into their traps.
+
+If you are a buyer you are, possibly, looking at a Russell knife,
+listening to Booth's eloquent description of the way they are hand
+forged, elegantly ground, and how Oakman inspects every blade and then
+wraps it up carefully in Ella Wheeler Wilcox's last poem. The pattern
+you have in your hand pleases you, but you wonder how others will look
+at it. The question is not, "Do I like it?" but, "Will it sell?" You
+are inclined to think it will, but just then your eye falls on scores
+of patterns on your shelves that you thought would go like hot cakes,
+but they have disappointed you. Perhaps, after all, your best way is
+to wait; but just then Booth opens his little book and shows you where
+Bartlett ordered 100 gross; Buhl, 50 gross; Ducharme, 25 gross, and
+Blossom, 10 gross (but he puts his thumb over this last hastily), and
+you tell him to send you a few. As I said before, I believe the best
+buyer is more or less influenced by being told what others are doing,
+and with the smaller trade it is constantly used to sway their
+decision.
+
+Is it right?
+
+I do not know. I am not writing of the ethics of business. I know that
+traveling men use the order taken from one buyer to influence another,
+and that it often has great influence, although I think the buyer is
+not wise who acts upon such information. Even when he is told the
+strict truth regarding the orders given by others, he ought to know
+his own stock and trade so well that he could depend upon his own
+judgment. But most of us like to lean on some one else, and when we
+are hesitating and learn that our competitors have decided thus and
+so, it is easy to fall into line and buy as they did.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+Sitting at the breakfast table of the hotel next morning a gentleman
+opposite looked up pleasantly and asked:
+
+"Are you selling goods, sir?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What line?"
+
+"Guns and sporting goods."
+
+"Yes? I'm a little in that line myself." And he handed me his card.
+
+              HOPSBY, COCKLEY & CO.,
+              20 Warren Street,
+              New York City.
+
+"My name is Cockley," he added.
+
+I had heard of him often, and was very glad to meet him, though I
+would have been still happier if he were not selling the Norwich
+revolvers. I always had a feeling that I stood a poor show when I was
+in direct competition with other salesmen in my line, and I never felt
+quite comfortable with them.
+
+"How is trade?" I asked.
+
+"Well, rather dull on the road; but they write me it is booming at
+home. We have a large South American trade that the elder Mr. Hopsby,
+being a fluent Spanish scholar, and author of that well-known work,
+'Spanish As She Is Walked,'looks after, while young Mr. Hopsby looks
+after his father and me, and it keeps him busy."
+
+"You have a good many lines beside pistols?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, yes; pistols are a side issue. I sold Deming 1,237 Waterbury
+watches, and Blossom a car-load of can-openers. I sell Pribyl here a
+ton of nail-pullers at a time. Did you ever see the Waterbury watch?"
+
+"I have not seen it lately."
+
+"Then take these two; no, put them both in your pockets; I always give
+a man two, so he can check off one by the other. A Waterbury watch is
+one of the greatest blessings in the world. Babies can drop them; boys
+can throw them at each other, and women can use them as
+stocking-darners. Mr. Hopsby drops one into the contribution box every
+Sunday, and expects, in the course of a few years, to provide every
+young African with a time piece."
+
+I didn't get it quite clear in my mind whether Cockley was guying me
+or not, but he looked as if he were simply trying to be sociable.
+
+"Have you been long on the road?" he asked.
+
+"No; this is my first trip."
+
+"That so? You look quite at home. I remember my first trip; it was in
+New England, and I was selling sewing-machine needles. Mr. Hopsby took
+me around a corner before I started and, presenting me with a
+nail-puller, told me he was afraid he was doing wrong to send me out,
+I was so young; but that I was to remember that the only way to
+prosperity was in getting orders. It hadn't struck me in just that
+light before, but the more I thought it over the more I believed he
+was right. The first man I tackled was a pious-looking deacon, and I
+began to whistle 'The Ninety and Nine' as I went toward him, so that
+he might understand that I was a Bible class scholar. I worked over
+that brother for two mortal hours, and finally got mad. 'If you only
+played billiards,' said I, 'I'd lick you like thunder.' 'You can't do
+it,' said he, and in less than ten minutes we were at the table across
+the street. I was just more than walloping him, when suddenly I
+remembered the tearful injunctions of Mr. Hopsby. I let him beat me
+three games, and then sold him $60 worth of needles."
+
+"You have been on the road a long time?"
+
+"Twenty-two years come Valentine's day."
+
+I looked incredulous.
+
+"Oh, I began young. Chris. Morgan, George Bartlett, Sam Parmelee,
+Charley Healey, and I started on the same day. We now leave New York
+Saturday night, give Cleveland, Monday; Toledo and Detroit, Tuesday;
+Fort Wayne and Indianapolis, Wednesday; Chicago, Thursday; St. Louis,
+Friday; Cincinnati, Saturday; and are in New York for business the
+next Monday morning."
+
+"That is fast traveling."
+
+"Yes, but we have the trade educated up to it. We tell them 'no
+bouquets,' 'no parties,' but just orders. We telegraphed ahead to
+Toledo, the other day, so that while the train waited twenty minutes
+for dinner I sold three bills."
+
+The was all said so honestly and so pleasantly that I had to believe
+he was sincere, but at the same time I knew it wasn't strictly
+correct, and I felt more and more uncomfortable.
+
+"How do you like this hotel?"
+
+"Pretty well; I'm not very particular."
+
+"You will be when you have been ten or fifteen years on the road.
+Hotels are a large part of your life. I left word at the Julian House,
+in Dubuque, to be called at six o'clock, the other night, and about
+four I heard some one pounding away, so I asked what was up. The
+musical voice of the watchmen came back: 'It's now 4 o'clock, and I'm
+going off watch, so yees has two hours yet to sleep before 6 o'clock.'
+Now that struck me as a family arrangement, and I'm going to have it
+extended to other houses."
+
+"There's something about hotels I don't like," I said.
+
+"What's that? The whisky? It is poor here, but you will find it better
+farther West."
+
+"No," I said, "I'm not much interested in the whisky. What I dislike
+about hotels is the loneliness."
+
+"Yes, that's so. For that reason I like to travel with a party. I get
+Brother Little, he sells Pillsbury flour, and is a first-rate player
+on the harmonica, and Al Bevins (the talented sleigh-bell artist), who
+plays on a $2 music box, while I play on a double police whistle equal
+to any man in America. We take possession of the parlor and invite the
+landlord's family in, and, I tell you, we make it home-like! How would
+you like to try a little concert here to-night?"
+
+I begged off most emphatically, and said I must go for business. "Hold
+on, we'll go together. Do you know any one here?"
+
+I confessed that I did not.
+
+"Neither do I; so we can be of great help to each other. I'll
+introduce you, and then you can introduce me."
+
+I felt as if I stood a good chance of getting into some kind of a
+scrape before I got away from him; but off we started. We were going
+down the street when Cockley struck an attitude and pointed to a sign
+over the way:
+
+"I told you I knew no one; I was joking. There's a friend's. Let's go
+over and see Bewell. He'll be glad to see us and give us the whole
+town. He was in New York this spring, and we had a good time together
+studying up art. After he had once seen the game piece in Stewart's it
+was impossible to keep him away from it. I never saw men so devoted to
+aesthetics as he and Joe Gildersleeve were. He said the best way to
+see the picture was through a glass of rum and molasses, and he looked
+at it in that light about thirteen times a day."
+
+I followed him in with some fear of a joke being played on me, but his
+manner changed at the door, and we met Bewell as if we were all
+deacons. He gave Cockley a very warm reception, as if thoroughly glad
+to see him. I concluded I was in the way, so with a promise to call
+later, I betook myself to another house. I did not meet Cockley again
+for many months.
+
+I thought him over when I had time, and was not surprised that I had
+always heard him spoken of as being a very successful salesman. The
+half-hour that we were together had made me like him, and the way that
+he went into Bewell's store showed me that he knew when to be
+dignified as well as when to be jolly. I especially liked the way in
+which he spoke of his partners; in my way of thinking this is one of
+the signs of a broad man. The small, petty-minded fellows are sure to
+have a complaint to make of their house or buyers or partners. In
+following Cockley's steps since I have always heard him pleasantly
+spoken of by merchants and travelers.
+
+I found the store, to which I took my way, a large wholesale hardware
+house. I observed as I entered that one man was very angry about
+something, while he talked to another whom I took to be his traveling
+man. I did not care to bother him until he was through, so nodded a
+good morning and took a chair. I soon found the man was angry over
+allowances the traveler had made in the previous week, and I was much
+interested and strongly in sympathy with him.
+
+"What did Labar say about the goods he returned?" he asked, as his eye
+caught that name in the list in his hand.
+
+"He claimed that he ordered dish-pans and that we sent rinsing-pans,
+and that the brushes were moth eaten."
+
+"What did you tell him?"
+
+"I said as little as I could."
+
+"I wish you had told him that he was a contemptible cur. A man who
+will lie over $4.80 worth of goods, after keeping them in his hands
+ninety days, and seeing you twice meantime without saying a word, is a
+mighty small man. He knew from the price what the pans would be, but
+he never thought of any such excuse until after we drew on him for his
+long overdue bill. Of course our kicking does no good, because other
+houses will sell him until they have similar experiences with him, and
+it will take a good while to go around. If I was as mean as some of
+these whelps I'd shoot myself. Did Simpson pay up?"
+
+"He paid the balance of the bill, but would not pay interest; said
+that we were the only house that charged interest, and he should never
+buy of us again."
+
+"The miserable little liar! I don't suppose a house is in existence
+that lets a bill run five months after due and does not add interest.
+When are you going out?"
+
+"On the next train."
+
+"Well, try and collect the balance due from Stone, but don't sell him
+another dollar; there are decent men enough in the trade, let the mean
+ones go. If he does not pay, get the name of a reliable justice and we
+will send a sworn account to him. But don't sell him again."
+
+"They're good as wheat."
+
+"I know they are good in the sense of being responsible; mean men
+usually are; but it is not a question of their responsibility; they
+are tricky and untruthful, and their idea of being smart is to lie
+over goods and prices and compel a deduction. Give them the go-by.
+Well, good-by; don't worry over trade; do your best and we will be
+satisfied."
+
+As his man started off he turned to me with, "Well, young man, you
+look as if you wanted to sell me something."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+When a merchant says to the traveler, "Young man, you want to sell me
+something?" it is a notice to come at once to the point and state your
+business. It is not the way we like to proceed. We prefer to pass the
+compliments of the day, talk about business, and approach gradually
+the special branch of trade to which we are devoted. But Mr. Clark's
+"Well, young man," was like a whip, and I had to at once open out with
+my little story.
+
+"We don't want anything in that line," said he, with decision. "We are
+full of guns and ammunition. It's a beastly business. I wish I was out
+of it. Here is a card quoting Pieper's 'Diana' gun at $32; mine cost
+me $38; now, how the d---l does this concern sell at $32?"
+
+The "Diana" gun was well known to the trade as one having all the
+modern improvements; the rubber butt-piece had Diana's head on it and
+hence the name; but Pieper sent over one lot of about two hundred guns
+of the common quality, and this "Diana" butt-piece was on them; they
+were sold by Pieper's agent to a gun house as common guns, at about
+$28, but this house promptly sent out its daily postal card quoting
+the "Diana gun" at $32. This was the story as told to our house, and I
+explained it to Mr. Clark.
+
+"That may be just as you say," said he, "but a business that is full
+of that kind of tricks is a good one to get out of."
+
+Just then a clerk came in and handed him a slip of paper, which I
+recognized as a special report from the mercantile agency. He excused
+himself while he read it. "This beats the Turks," said he to me. "I
+never knew a time when it was so difficult to get reports of the
+standing of retail dealers that you could tie to. My man sends in an
+order from J. C. K., Burlington, and he says: 'This man has a nice
+stock of goods and his neighbors say he is worth $5,000, and is good
+for anything he buys.' Dun does not quote him at all, so I asked for
+special report, and here it is:
+
+ J. C. K., Burlington, has been in business here since 1880; came from
+ Kokomo, where he failed and paid 40 cents on the dollar; is married,
+ age about 42, habits good. Claims to have stock of $2,200, and to owe
+ not to exceed $600. Is doing fair business, but his personal expenses
+ are rather high, and it is said he is close run for ready means.
+ Thought safe for small amounts, but bill should not be allowed to
+ lapse.
+
+"Now this and my salesman's report don't tally very closely. Here is
+another case. My man sells John Johnes, of Dubuque, and writes: 'He
+has a grocery well stocked; says stock is worth $3,000, and no debts.
+His neighbors say he is sound as wheat.' But when Dun's report comes
+in it says:
+
+ Is a married man. Been in business alone and with partners for
+ several years; means limited and estimated worth $500 to $800. Is
+ regarded as an honest man, and it is believed he will do for a
+ limited line.
+
+"Now I don't like an honest man who is worth $500 to $800, according
+to Dun, but who tells my man he is worth $3,000."
+
+"You can usually depend on Dun, can't you?"
+
+"Yes, I think they sin on the right side; they are apt to make a man
+out as bad as they can. Here is one of their reports, as an instance:
+
+ F. Keef, saloon and grocery. He appears to be doing a good business;
+ is in debt, but to what extent are not able to say. Had some claims
+ against him here, but think he will pay. Has some energy and push in
+ business. Has no real estate so far as known, and not considered
+ sound financially.
+
+"You would not care to sell a man on such a report, would you? Yet
+that man is one of the best paying men on our books."
+
+"Do not your salesmen call on the banks?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose they do, but let me tell you that banks are the
+biggest liars in existence. They often say a man is good when they
+know exactly to the contrary. My man sent in an order from L. Loeby,
+of LaGro, Kentucky; he wrote, 'Loeby is a sharp buyer, and said to be
+good. I called at the bank and they said he was A No. 1, and good for
+anything he buys.' Well, I got a report from Dun, and here it is:
+
+ L. Loeby, LaGro; age 35; married; been in business two years; fairly
+ temperate and fairly attentive to business; character and business
+ capacity moderate; it is said doubtful as to honesty; means in
+ business, about $1,000; no real estate; on the $1,000 above listed as
+ his means in business the bank here holds a chattel mortgage of $600;
+ he has a large family, and of late he has not been paying his bills
+ as they fall due.
+
+"You can see why the bank quotes him A No. 1. The more goods he gets
+the better is the value of their chattel mortgage. I have stopped
+putting much faith in what banks say about men."
+
+"Are not the mercantile agencies almost always sure to find something
+against a man or a firm?"
+
+"No, sir; they have to give facts as near as they can get at them, and
+if there is nothing against a man they can not give anything against
+him. Take this report:
+
+ Darby & Chase, groceries and commission, Delphi. E. J. Darby and W.
+ H. Chase compose the firm; seem to be men of good character and
+ business capacity. They are thought to be worth $10,000 to $15,000.
+
+"That report probably gives the best general opinion in that community
+regarding that firm. Their character and business capacity are good,
+and they are prospering, evidently. But the mercantile agencies omit
+to tell us some very important points about men. A man may be
+financially all right, and yet be an undesirable customer, or one who
+ought to be handled with great care. Every report ought to tell
+whether the man is a smart Aleck or not; if he is mean about returning
+goods; if he makes unfair claims; if he is a chronic reporter of
+shortages; if he allows bills to run long past due and then refuses to
+pay interest, or exchange on drafts; all these points ought to be
+covered."
+
+"Are you much bothered by such men?"
+
+"Every wholesale house is; no matter what line it is in, or who it is,
+the wholesale dealer has more or less of just such men to deal with. I
+know a retailer who invariably reports a shortage; he lies, of course,
+but he is fool enough to think he is making money because he beats
+every house out of a dollar or two every time he pays a bill. Here is
+a man whose bill was due November 30; I draw on him by express (his
+town has no bank) February 23, and add 25 cents to the draft to cover
+the cost of getting the money to me. I make no claim for interest
+although I have as good a legal claim for it as for the principal, but
+he refuses to pay my draft, and in a few days sends me his check on a
+country bank for the face of the bill. It cost me 25 cents to collect
+his check, and I paid 25 cents to the express company on the returned
+draft, so I get 50 cents less than my bill and lose the use of my
+money nearly three months after it was due me."
+
+"Why didn't you draw through the nearest bank the day the bill was
+due?"
+
+"I didn't want to be so sharp with him; I felt kindly toward him, and
+supposed a little leniency would be appreciated, so I only sent a
+statement asking for remittance. And this is the way he repays me!"
+
+"Probably you gave him a piece of your mind."
+
+"What good does it do? The drummer from my competitor will call on
+him, and if the dealer starts to run me down he will help him at it.
+We put up with things of this kind until the average retailer fancies
+he is real smart, and the meaner he is the smarter he will be
+considered."
+
+"But isn't it your experience that shippers do make mistakes, and
+occasional overcharges are made?"
+
+"Certainly it is; not very frequently, but occasionally such things
+happen to us. But I don't write the factories as if they were
+pickpockets, and as if these errors were intentional. In thirty years'
+experience I never knew a house refuse to correct an error, and while
+I want all my discounts and extras to which I am entitled, I don't
+want one cent more than that. If I do not pay bills when due I expect
+to be drawn on, and have to pay the cost of the draft. If interest is
+demanded I pay it, and if it is not demanded I feel grateful to the
+house for letting me off."
+
+"I think gunsmiths a mighty touchy set of men to deal with."
+
+"They're no better and no worse than any one else. My neighbor told me
+last night that he had just received notice from an Iowa customer that
+he would not take a bill of dry goods, just sent him, out of the depot
+because they were charged one-half cent too much. He claimed the bill
+was one-half cent a yard on everything higher than the price agreed
+upon between himself and the salesman. The house is one of the most
+reputable in the State; the salesman is one of fifteen years'
+experience, and the prices are the same as he made to others in that
+town and all along the route. He says the retailer kept no copy of the
+order and goes entirely by guess. He does not write to ask the house
+if there is a mistake or not, but shows his smartness by announcing
+that he shall refuse to receive the goods."
+
+"What will they do with him?"
+
+"Keen said the man owed them $700 on a past due note that they were
+carrying at his request; he said they would compel him to pay it up
+clean at once, and never go near him again. I hope it will bother him
+right bad to raise the money."
+
+I apologized for having taken up so much of his time, but said I would
+be sorry to go away and not have a small order to show for it. I
+called his attention to Flobert rifles, interested him in them, and
+finally secured his order for a case. As we were finishing our talk a
+happy-looking pair came in the door, and I took up the morning paper
+while Mr. Clark went forward and greeted one of them, a Mr. Healey,
+very cordially, as if he were a very old friend, and then Healey, his
+eyes twinkling, said:
+
+"Mr. Clark, let me introduce my friend, Mr. Fuller. He is known far
+and near as 'And Forged Fuller, and he is also the owner and patentee
+of that celebrated washing compound, Fuller's Earth."
+
+Clark laughed heartily as he shook hands with Fuller, who said:
+
+"I may say that my trade mark is 'Paragon;' heverybody hasks for it--"
+
+"Yes," broke in Healey, "and nobody buys it!"
+
+"I may say," said Fuller, placidly, "that Mr. Healey is wrong; I
+frequently sell a few. It's my trade mark, and known, I may say, in
+England as well as here."
+
+"Yes," said Healey, "Fuller lives on both continents, and brings the
+steel over in his grip. We have our examples at the hotel and shall be
+glad to have you come up there. Fuller don't care whether he sells or
+not; he is rich and traveling only to keep down his flesh."
+
+Mr. Clark made an engagement with them and they went away. As they
+passed out he said: "There goes one of the most genial-hearted men on
+the road. I have known Charley Healey for about twenty years. He came
+out here representing Hilger & Son, and built up a good trade for that
+firm. Hilger could not have done it in a thousand years. Then that
+firm and Wiebusch consolidated, and Healey looked after their Western
+business. I never met a buyer who was not his friend, and I imagine
+most of them are, like myself, heavily in his debt for courtesies
+extended to us, not by way of business, but as if he were under
+obligations to us. I say to you that a good many houses never suspect
+the debt they are under to their traveling men, but look upon
+themselves as the great magnet that draws trade, when nine out of ten
+dealers care nothing whatever about the principals and buy entirely
+out of regard for the salesman."
+
+I had heard many men speak in the same terms of Healey before, and I
+hoped I should meet him at dinner.
+
+As I bade good-by to Mr. Clark and thanked him for the order given me,
+he said: "Somehow you do not seem like a stranger."
+
+I thanked him for that compliment most sincerely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+Sunday to the commercial traveler, if to no others, is preeminently a
+day of rest. If there are stores open during week days he feels that
+he ought to be at work, and if he gives himself an extra half-hour at
+noon or evening his conscience pricks him. But upon the Sabbath there
+is nothing to be done by way of business, unless in getting from one
+town to another, and it is his rest day.
+
+I slept so late (I admit that I am always lazy whenever I dare be)
+that I fancied I would have the dining-room to myself, but I had
+plenty of company. The hotel where I was had an excellent reputation
+on the road and was a favorite place at which to pass Sunday. I was
+fortunate enough to meet here a hardware man from my own city whom I
+knew well, and who had traveled long enough to know almost everybody.
+
+"How is trade?" was, of course, his first question.
+
+I had no bragging to do over my trade, for, it must be confessed, I
+was not sure that I had sold even half what I ought to have done. So I
+said, "My trade is only so-so."
+
+"Well," said he, "I guess that is about as much as any of us can say.
+Times are tight. Goods are so infernal cheap and cost so little that
+if you sell a man four or five pages it don't amount to anything in
+dollars and cents. I was just telling White here--by the way, let me
+introduce my friend, Mr. White; sells notions for Haff & Walbridge,
+New York. I was just telling White that I took a big order from a
+house yesterday, one covering six pages of note paper, and each item
+calling for fair quantities, and it amounted to $92. A few years ago
+it would have footed up $400."
+
+"It is so in every line," said White, "everything is down, but we have
+new lines every season, and keep up trade by having novelties."
+
+"What a chain-lightning genius Haff is!" exclaimed my frend. "I
+remember when he traveled for Howard & Sanger; good-natured, voluble,
+energetic, and uneasy as a lump of mercury. Suddenly he blossomed out
+as an inventor, and he's kept on inventing ever since. I've been
+surprised that the man who is father of so many children has not
+invented a better nursing-bottle or colic exterminator. What's your
+last novelty?"
+
+"Base balls."
+
+"Ye gods! Base balls! Well, you've got a mighty good man to fight
+against."
+
+"Who's that?"
+
+"Taylor, of Bridgeport. I don't know when I've seen a man of more push
+than he. I believe he patented or invented the ball that Warner makes,
+and they placed him in charge of the ball department. He just has
+balls on the brain; tosses them in his sleep; takes them to church and
+plays catch with the tenor, and keeps two balls in the air while he
+drinks a cup of tea. That kind of a man is bound to succeed."
+
+"Is the base ball trade a large one?"
+
+"Yes, it amounts to a good deal of money. Every notion dealer in the
+country carries more or less of them in stock. The ball that sells for
+a nickel is bought by the barrelful; such a ball is sold to the
+jobbers at 28 or 30 cents per dozen, and to the retailer at 35 to 40
+cents. Balls that retail at 10 to 25 cents are the best sellers, but a
+few good balls go in every bill."
+
+"How high do they run?"
+
+"The best sewed balls retail at $1.75 each, but the ordinary 'league'
+ball retails at $1.50. Such a ball is sold to jobbers at $7 to $9 per
+dozen, except Spaulding's; he keeps his pretty stiff because he gets
+them into the hands of the National League, and a certain class,
+because of that, will buy them and no other."
+
+"Is there any choice in the different makes?"
+
+"Very little. Certain dealers get balls made with their name on and
+advertise them as being superior to anything made, and very often the
+manufacturer cannot sell his own brand in the territory where these
+are. You know people love to be fooled."
+
+As we went away from the table, we met a gentleman whom my friend
+introduced as Mr. Hart, of Bradly & Smith, brush manufacturers, New
+York. Hart evidently was an old timer on the road, and knew the brush
+business like a book.
+
+"Trade is fair," said he, "but New York has to compete with brush
+factories in every city now, whereas, twenty years ago, we had it our
+own way. That was the time when my firm ran the Methodist Church and
+laid out Asbury Park, N.J. It was easier to make $50,000 a year then
+than it is to make $5,000 now."
+
+I was struck with a point he made against a buyer for a large jobbing
+house. Some one had said that they bought in good quantities, as
+compared with one of their competitors. "Yes, they buy in larger
+quantities," said he, "but give me the other men. I sell them both,
+but here is an incident which tells the kind of big buyers your
+friends are. A year ago I had a new leather-back horse brush that I
+was selling at $9 a dozen. I showed it to B.'s buyer and it took his
+eye at once. 'What is the best you will do if I take a quantity?' he
+asked. 'I would like to sell that at $9, and if I could do it I'd push
+them.' I knew there was a good profit to us at $9, even where we sold
+in small lots, so I figured that in quantities we could sell at $7.50.
+How many do you suppose he ordered?"
+
+"Well," said my friend, "knowing that it's mighty hard work to sell a
+$9 brush nowadays, I should say six dozen would be a good order."
+
+"Yes, so it would; I expected he would order six or eight dozen, but
+he ordered twenty dozen."
+
+"The deuce he did! Did he sell them?"
+
+"I was there yesterday and he had sixteen dozen and a half on hand. I
+don't call that very shrewd buying."
+
+Sitting in the smoking room was a tall, slim, Yankee-looking sort of a
+man, who smoked in a nervous way, and when he talked seemed to speak
+with great earnestness. He was introduced as Mr. Rockwell, a cutlery
+manufacturer of Meriden, Conn. Somehow these Meriden men are all
+alike. They are great pushers in business, wire-pullers in politics,
+and in season and out of season stand by each other. If Wilcox and
+Curtiss and the Rockwell family were only guaranteed fifty years more
+of life they would own the State of Connecticut. Rockwell was
+discoursing upon pocket cutlery, and as it was a subject about which I
+knew nothing, I took a back seat.
+
+"American manufacturers," said he, "not only have to fight against
+poor foreign goods, but what is worse, they have to fight against them
+under American names and labels. Thirty years ago if a man got up a
+fancy brand he put 'Sheffield' on it; now this is changed; everything
+has to have at least an American name. The result is that American
+goods are damaged by foreign trash, which, having an American brand,
+is supposed to be American-made. A farmer buys a knife branded
+'Missouri Cutlery Shops,' thinking he is getting an honest, home made
+article. The probabilities are that it was made in Germany, and is of
+the poorest quality. It does not give satisfaction; so he damns
+American goods and goes back to his old IXL. And when he gets a poor
+IXL knife, as he very frequently does, he swears it is bogus."
+
+"That's so," said one of his friends. "I often hear men sighing for
+the old knife of their daddies."
+
+"Why, here is a sample of the man in this letter. Let me read a few
+lines. After mentioning our advertisement, he says:
+
+ Now I have been hunting a good knife for twenty years, but too much
+ "protective tariff" having shut out competition, we now only get such
+ "pot-metal" cutlery as monopolists choose to give us; nice handles
+ with hoop-iron or cast blades, not as good for $2 as the old "Barlow"
+ knife boys could buy for a "bit" forty-five years ago. If yours are
+ good I will be glad to get them, but if they are a cheat, I will call
+ on you with a shot-gun, on my way to Canada, where I will then have
+ to look for a good knife.
+
+"That man," continued Rockwell, "believes what he says, probably, but
+a man of 45 who knows so little ought to be shut up in an idiot
+asylum. If we could have a law here as they do in England, permitting
+no goods to be labeled or branded as American-made unless they were
+made here, such a man would hang his head with shame at his injustice
+to home manufacturers."
+
+I liked to hear Rockwell talk; he had a way of giving a sentence in a
+crisp, sharp way, and then half shutting his eyes for a moment, as if
+he was waiting to see what the other fellow would say and be ready
+with an answer.
+
+My friend spoke of him with great enthusiasm, saying his house had
+done business with him for many years, and looked upon Rockwell as one
+of the most growing men in the trade. In talking with him afterward
+about pocket cutlery, he said to me: "No cutlery factory in this
+country is paying a penny to its stockholders; we are looked upon by
+the free-traders as coining money, but our men are averaging twice the
+wages of the English, and three times those paid by Germany, and the
+labor is about eighty-five percent, of the cost of the pocket knife.
+The leading American makers turn out good goods, far above the average
+English or German; but the consumer is not able to tell whether he is
+using an American or foreign-made knife, because of the habit of
+branding everything with American names, and we have to bear the
+curse."
+
+"Why is it that Meriden people hang together so?" I asked.
+
+"Do we?" he asked, laughing. "Perhaps it is because they're all such
+good fellows. The rich men there, and there are a good many of them,
+have always been ready to help any enterprise that came to the town
+and could make a fair showing. You will find the same men stockholders
+in a great many different companies; their salesmen help each other,
+and they are closely united socially. They work together and love
+their city."
+
+I don't know any better eulogy to deliver upon a body of business men.
+
+Later in the day, a rather warm conversation near us drew us toward
+five or six men who seemed to be growing excited. A traveling salesman
+appeared to be giving a manufacturer some good advice.
+
+"You men," said he, "seem to think you do a very smart thing when you
+go to these big buyers and give them an extra 10 per cent., but you
+don't seem to be capable of learning that in doing this you are
+cutting your own throats. Only a few months ago I was talking to
+Simmons. 'I don't like these low prices,' said he, 'nor to have
+everything down so close to cost; we can't get extra discounts as we
+can when prices are higher; the most we can get now under ordinary
+circumstances is 2-1/2 to 5 per cent.' 'How much do you think you
+ought to get?' I asked him. 'Ten per cent., at least,' said he."
+
+"But he doesn't get it," said the manufacturer.
+
+"Oh yes, he does, on a good deal of his stock. He must get it on your
+goods or he would not be quoting them at the price we pay you for
+them. We paid you $3.60 for the last lot we bought, and I saw a
+quotation from him on your goods at $3.62. He is no fool; he does not
+sell goods at cost. When I saw his quotation my price was $3.60 and
+will be $3.60 until we clean your goods from our shelves, and it will
+be a good while before any more of the same brand ever go back there
+again."
+
+"But that is all nonsense," said the other, "he buys the goods at
+exactly the same price your house does."
+
+"Then it is time we quit them. If we have no protection on your goods
+we want to drop them."
+
+"That's pretty tough," said the other, half disposed to be angry. "I
+have no control over your prices; I sell your house as I sell him; I
+advertise the goods so that the jobber could make a profit if he
+would, but if he won't I cannot compel him to do it. The jobber has no
+idea of anything but to beat his competitor in buying and then beat
+him in cutting the price. Nothing counts in business but a 'cut.' I
+don't know where we are going to."
+
+"Well," said my friend, "suppose we go to dinner."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+A number of traveling men around a Sunday dinner-table, when they feel
+sure it is going to be a good dinner, is about as entertaining a
+company as any business man would care to be in. Jokes are necessarily
+plenty; stories fly about freely, but the man must be very
+thick-headed who does not pick up bits of information that he is the
+better for knowing.
+
+At our table were represented knit goods, groceries, cutlery,
+hardware, crockery, and guns. When the the jokes had flowed about, and
+firms were being discussed, I heard the dry-goods man say: "Yes, sir,
+if I wanted to point out two of the longest-headed men who foresaw the
+coming change in doing business I would mention Butler Bros., of
+Chicago and New York. I used to sell them notions when they were in
+Boston, and they were nice men to do business with. It's harder to
+sell them to-day, for the buyer has grown hardened and cuts to the
+quick." "They were the 5-cent counter men, were they not?"
+
+"Yes, 5, 10, and 25 cent counter goods was their hobby, and it beat
+the great horn spoon to see how the thing spread. Every little
+cross-roads store had its 5 and 10 cent counters, and manufacturers
+and jobbers cut in prices to cater to it. Of course it could attract
+attention only by offering bargains. If a dealer put on his 25-cent
+counter only such goods as he had been selling at 25 cents, no one
+would have patronized it. The point in his mind was to attract
+attention by the bargains he could show. He could make a fair profit
+on the whole lay-out, but perhaps one-third of the stock was sold
+very close. Under ordinary circumstances a dealer paying 20 cents for
+an article would sell it at 30 to 40, but now it went on the 25-cent
+counter."
+
+"But it hurt regular trade."
+
+"Yes, it did to this extent, that it led men to dabble in things not
+in their own line. The dealer was apt to do the most cutting in such
+goods as were not in his regular line. He was inclined to be stiff on
+his own goods, but say he was a dry-goods dealer, it did not hurt him
+to cut on tin dippers, wash-basins, wooden-ware, etc. So when the
+hardware men followed with their cheap counters they were most
+inclined to cut on notions, and in fact the cheap-counter business has
+very much to do in the mixing up of trades and the demoralization of
+prices."
+
+"Don't you think it was the basis of department stores?"
+
+"Yes, I do. Men saw that their small line of crockery, or tinware, or
+stationery sold well, and they increased the assortment, and finally
+led up to the 'department' idea."
+
+"How is this 5-cent counter business managed? I mean, how are the
+sales made?"
+
+"Largely in assortments; for instance, if you pick up advertisements
+of the houses making a specialty of such goods, you will find that
+they offer assortments for a certain amount of money. They give the
+goods in detail; the dozen price of each article, the quantity sent in
+the assortment, the cost to the dealer, and the total retail price. Of
+course if the dealer is just starting out in such goods the entire
+assortment is what he wants, but if he is in it already the list
+enables him to buy just those things he needs. You'd be surprised to
+see the profit there is in these things, even in the present hard
+times. For instance, I saw an assortment of 5-cent goods consisting of
+167 dozen articles which would retail, as you can figure, for $100.20;
+cost to the dealer, $60; profit, $40.20, or 67 per cent, on the
+investment."
+
+"Let's go into the 5-cent business," said the cutlery man
+
+"Better start a knife-stand on the street. Do you make goods for
+street-men?"
+
+"No; they handle the cheapest Dutch trash."
+
+"Where do they get it?"
+
+"In New York and Philadelphia. Seven or eight years ago some street
+fakir got hold of a showy two-blade penknife at about $2 a dozen. He
+took his stand on the street and they went off readily at 25 cents.
+The business seemed to spread all over the country like wild-fire, and
+especially during the fair season. Jobbers in the inland cities were
+cleaned out of stock they looked upon as dead and worthless. Of
+course, as soon as this demand was felt houses began to prepare to
+supply it. At first the fakirs were willing to pay $2 per dozen, but
+when new stocks came out cuts were made and the prices steadily went
+down."
+
+"What do they pay now?"
+
+"These 25-cent tables do not cost, on an average, $1.50 per dozen
+knives. They get out a very handsome-looking two-blade knife, in bone
+or ebony handle, for $1.32 per dozen; a good-looking jack-knife for
+$1.40 to $1.75; pearl handle penknives for $1.75 to $2."
+
+"Are they worth a cent?"
+
+"Not to cut with. They sell by the eye entirely; handles and blades
+are well finished, and they seem to be worth a good deal more than the
+price asked for them."
+
+"We had quite a run with some of these men on revolvers," said the
+hardware man. "We had a wood handle 32-caliber that cost 85 cents--a
+good pistol. A seedy-looking fellow bought two or three hundred from
+us. His plan was to go into a shop, saloon, or store, and in a
+confidential way tell the boss or clerk that he was dead broke and
+would sell his $5 revolver for $2.50. At that time the average
+gunsmith was asking $3.50 to $5 for a common revolver, and he sold
+enough every day to make him good wages."
+
+"Thank goodness!" said the grocer, "we don't have these snide affairs
+in our line."
+
+"No, people have to give your goods away. It's samples of soap,
+samples of tobacco, samples of tea, samples of baking-powder, etc.,
+etc., from morning till night. It's a mighty mean line that has to be
+given away."
+
+"This giving away," said the crockery man, "has made a big hole in our
+business. Some one suddenly discovered that crockery would be a taking
+thing to help work off poor goods. Of course, the home jobber
+benefited by it for a very short time, and then the New York importers
+stepped in and took the cream. Baking-powder men, coffee-grinders, tea
+houses, and others sent out crockery, and people, got so much of it
+for nothing they had no excuse for buying any."
+
+"I doubt if it really hurts us much in the long run," said the Meriden
+man. "Here was a baking-powder concern in Ohio that offered a set,
+consisting of fifty-one pieces, of silver-plated ware with every case
+of their own goods. If you had read their advertisement you would have
+been sure that Rogers never turned out any better goods than these
+they were giving away. But the fifty-one pieces cost them just $7.50!
+They used a good many thousand sets. The table caster was worth about
+70 cents. You can imagine the quality! Now, I hold that in the long
+run cheap stuff will help good goods. People who have it will get
+disgusted with it, and will replace it with reliable ware, while if
+they had never had the trash they would not have had their own consent
+to buy the better goods."
+
+"Perhaps the most wonderful thing about business today," was said, "is
+the amount of information given in circulars, price lists and
+advertisements. I can remember twenty years back where a price list
+simply gave you the briefest statement of the article, sometimes the
+size, but oftener not, and the price. Nowadays an ordinary list is a
+mine of information. I remember having reached the conclusion that one
+of the things particularly needed was a circular for the consumer
+about the way to strop and take care of a razor. I could not find a
+syllable on the subject in any English or American price list. I wrote
+to four manufacturers for points, but received the briefest of replies
+and no practical help. I sat down to write the circular. Did you
+gentlemen ever try your hand at such a job?"
+
+No one had.
+
+"Then I just want you to try it once, and you will believe what I tell
+you, that it will be about as tough a job as you ever undertook. I had
+been selling razors for ten or twelve years; I had talked with
+barbers, as you all have; I had heard customers talk; I had heard
+shrewd remarks and silly remarks; I had heard manufacturers
+occasionally drop a hint, and now I was to sit down and evolve out of
+my memory and experience a circular on the subject that would be of
+benefit to every one handling a razor."
+
+"How did you make out?"
+
+"Well, perhaps the best answer to that is the fact that our firm sends
+out the circular to-day just as I wrote it eight years ago. But I
+started to speak of the large amount of information you find in
+circulars and advertising nowadays. Advertising is much more of a
+science than it was. Pick up a decent trade paper and the ordinary
+advertisement is full of shrewd points for those handling the goods,
+that cannot help being of immense value to retailers. And I can call
+your attention to this: these advertisements, these shrewd ones, are
+always written by men who have been traveling salesmen. Such men know
+the points that ought to be brought out."
+
+"Yes," said the dry-goods man, "how is this, cut from the
+advertisement of a list of five-cent counter goods. Don't you believe
+the man who wrote this knew the soft side of a retailer?" And he read:
+
+                          HOW TO DO IT.
+
+ Bundle up some of the unseasonable goods that are taking up valuable
+ counter space, and put them away on the shelves. By this economy of
+ space, and with the possible addition of a temporary counter, you
+ have gained room enough to admit of the introduction of a "5c, 10c or
+ 25c counter." The next thing to do is to send to some reliable jobber
+ for a bill of staple household sellers, with which you can mix
+ hundreds of articles from your own stock; then send out a little
+ circular ("dodger") to the over-anxious inhabitants, telling them of
+ a few of the articles to be found on your "Cheap Counter," and they
+ will respond as readily as though you had sent them free tickets to
+ the circus. It matters not that they have not seen one of these
+ counters before, there will be the same rush--the same scramble for
+ first choice--the same telling of friends about bargains bought; and
+ instead of sitting around waiting for the advent of spring, you will
+ have pocketed a nice profit from your cheap counter, besides having
+ worked off any amount of odds and ends that might have been in your
+ store five years, and would have remained five years longer had not
+ this modern wonder made an exit for them.
+
+"That sounds mighty like Ed. Butler," said the dry-goods man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+Occasionally a traveling salesman meets at the hotel or on the train
+the head of some large house, who is making a trip for special reasons
+of his own. Such a man is always sure to be affable with every one,
+but he is especially conciliatory to the salesmen he meets on his
+route. Perhaps this is due to the fact that he is a stranger and these
+old travelers can help him, if they are so inclined, or it may be for
+the purpose of leading them to be talkative with him, and in that talk
+he can gather points that will be of value to him. Whatever the cause
+may be, there is no question as to the fact. But the talkativeness is
+not always on one side. I have met wholesale merchants on the road who
+would talk freely and tell me more about themselves and their business
+in one evening, while we sat in a country hotel, than they would have
+done in five years of ordinary intercourse in the city.
+
+The man who sits in the house all the year falls into several errors.
+One is in thinking that people are anxious to buy of him, and that his
+traveling men ought to find it very easy to get an order in almost
+every store. Another error is in believing that the orders come solely
+because of the firm's popularity, rather than of any merit in the
+salesman. I suppose there are goods so well advertised that, in a
+large measure, they sell themselves; but, outside of patent medicines,
+I can not now recall one such item.
+
+We were talking of this, half a dozen of us, while in the smoking-
+room Sunday evening, and one of us said: "The best man to work for, if
+you do your level best, is a man who has been on the road himself.
+Such a man always knows where and when allowances must be made for
+dull trade, and for cutting of prices. The man who always makes the
+most trouble, and who was fore-ordained to be a dashed fool, is the
+book-keeper. The balancing of his little gods of books is of more
+account, in his eyes, than is the sale of a bill of goods. And having
+the ear of the firm he usually gets permission to do any piece of
+dashed foolishness that he suggests. But next to him is the merchant,
+who never steps out of his own door to try to sell a bill, or the
+manufacturer who runs his little shop in a one-horse way and never
+goes out to see what others are doing, or learn what consumers are
+saying about his goods. I once traveled for such an old block-head,
+and, as I started off on a trip, I advised him to discontinue making a
+certain article, telling him it was out of date and could only be
+worked off on greenhorns in business. I guess I was as much interested
+in getting them off as if they were my own, and I lost no chance of
+working in a few wherever I could. The same amount of work on salable
+goods would have paid big money. Well, when I got home, may I never
+breathe, if that old ass hadn't taken my sales as evidence of the big
+demand for the goods and was piling up the store-house with the same
+stock!"
+
+"Yes," said another, "but the man who sits in his office usually makes
+the biggest mistake in supposing that he is a great deal smarter than
+the men he sells. Because he is a peg higher in trade, as jobber,
+importer, or manufacturer, he imagines he is also greater in ability,
+and he has no hesitancy in advising these poor devils about their
+business. I was selling scythes several years ago, and worked for just
+such a man as I have been describing. He was a good mechanic, but
+pig-headed; goods must be made and finished a certain way, because
+that was the way they had been made for thirty years. The result was
+we were losing our trade. I knew he was blaming me for the trade
+falling off, so I persuaded him to make a flying trip with me to
+Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit and Chicago. The dealers at
+Buffalo were rather old fogy, and we got our order there from our
+regular customer, but when we struck Cleveland I saw the old man open
+his eyes. It was one of Blossom's off-days, so he didn't waste much
+time on us, but said he didn't want any of our goods. Deming hadn't
+got into silver mining, so we couldn't get an order from him by buying
+a share of stock, but Van was about half-full, and he opened up on us.
+Then Toledo piled it on. There were four jobbing houses there in our
+line, but not one would buy. I knew one buyer pretty well. After we
+had been the rounds we came back to his place, and I asked him to tell
+us frankly how we could get some of his trade. He gave in detail the
+ideas that were current among retailers and consumers regarding shape
+and finish of scythes, putting it down in a clear-headed way, so that
+a baby could have understood him, but showing the shrewdness of a man
+who was studying all the points in connection with his trade. It did
+the business. We went up to Detroit, and had a long talk with Charlie
+Fletcher, and the old man bought a lot of samples and went home. On my
+next trip, you can bet, I had salable goods."
+
+"You can study a man as he is only when you see him in his own store,"
+said a third. "When a country merchant comes into Chicago, and walks
+into your store, he is very desirous that you shall be pleasantly
+impressed by him; so he puts on his best manners. You are on your
+native heath, you are surrounded by your clerks, and you are
+considerable of a man in a city of big men, while he realizes he is a
+very small toad in a little country puddle. But just put the shoe on
+the other foot, and go into his store. Now, he is on his own ground;
+you are asking favors of him in the shape of orders, and all the petty
+smartness comes out, if there is any in him. It is an opportunity that
+permits a mean man to be his meanest, and draws out of a generous,
+kindly soul all the milk of human kindness there is in his heart."
+
+"Well," said a dry-goods man, "there are a good many kinds of men in
+the world, but the man who makes me fighting mad is in Pittsburg. He's
+most infernally polite, but he never wants anything. As I go back to
+his desk he is either reading or writing. I say: 'Good morning, Mr.
+Blane,' and hand him my card. He scarcely looks at it, but in the most
+solemn and dignified way says: 'We do not need anything in your line
+to-day.' Then I open up on my leading items: 'I have a very nice line
+of novelties in so-and-so.' He looks off from his paper to say: 'We
+are full of so-and-so to-day,' then goes to reading again. 'I have
+some desirable patterns in new goods in silks.' He looks up to say,
+'We have enough silks for the present.' 'I can give you special prices
+on hairpins.' He looks up again to say: 'Our stock of hairpins is
+full.' And then I bow myself out. I asked the boss one day if he ever
+sold the firm when he was on the road. He said he did once. Blane was
+out of town and he sold his partner. Still, I call on him every time I
+go to Pittsburg."
+
+"Pittsburg? Oh, that's where Joe Horne hangs out."
+
+"Who's Joe Horne?"
+
+"Why, Joe is the man whose orders are as well known in the west as
+Willimantie thread. Every New York drummer stops at Pittsburg, and
+every dry-goods man sells Joe Horne, or says he does, so that now,
+west of the Mississippi, the first greeting given a drummer is, 'Show
+us Joe Horne's order.' Joe must be a very good fellow to give his
+orders so impartially."
+
+"Did you know Luce?" one dry-goods man asked the other.
+
+"Luce, of Toledo? I should say I did."
+
+"He was a tough man to tackle unless he felt just right. They tell of
+a put-up job on a drummer who used to call on him. He couldn't manage
+ever to get an order out of Luce. One day he said to a friend, who
+always sold Luce, 'How is it that you succeed and I fail? I sell the
+best trade in the country and to a good many men that you don't sell;
+now, why is it I can't catch on to Luce?' The other asked, 'Do you
+ever talk politics to him?' 'No.' 'Well, that's his soft side. He's a
+regular old moss-back, Vallandigham Democrat. If you want to succeed,
+go in on that line.' His friend thanked him, and the next time he went
+to Toledo he felt better. Luce wanted no goods, as usual. Then Mr.
+Traveling Man opened on politics. He remarked that all over the State
+there was a good show for burying the d--d Republicans that election.
+Luce glared at him in speechless wonder. Then Mr. Drummer launched out
+on the infernal meanness of the Republican leaders, but by this time
+Luce was ready for him, and the way that poor devil was talked to
+would make you sorry. When he next saw his friend there came pretty
+near being a fight, but the friend thought it too good a joke to keep
+and told Luce. No one enjoyed a joke better than Mr. Luce, and, by
+thunder, the next time the man called on him he gave him a good order,
+and they were the best of friends afterwards."
+
+"I often wonder if any one ever fools a man equal to the way he fools
+himself. I always laugh over a customer of mine in Cincinnati who
+always insists he must have 'a leetle adwantage.' The boys on the road
+like Old Pap and laugh over his 'leetle adwantage.' He says: 'I must
+haf a leetle adwantage ofer New York and Philadelphy. They ton't pay
+no freight. They get their goods at their door; I must haf a leetle
+adwantage to cover the freight.' The old man has this so firmly fixed
+in his head that we have to humor him by giving him 'a leetle
+adwantage.'"
+
+"Some men think that in giving an order all they need to do is to
+state their own terms and time, and every one will dance to their
+tune. A concern in the Northwest that failed (and they ought to), used
+to write their orders on a blank that was headed:
+
+           All prices guaranteed. Privilege of increasing,
+                    decreasing, or countermanding
+                   No charge for boxing or drayage.
+
+"How was that for smartness?"
+
+"You say they failed?"
+
+"They did."
+
+"They ought to have got rich!"
+
+"Yes, they are a fair type of the average buyer; it's cut here, screw
+down there, pare over yonder. No matter what your price may be, it's
+always, 'What are you going to do for me?' as if he must have a
+special cut. I showed Hibbard & Spencer's buyer a new tool the other
+day, and gave him my price. `What's the best you can do?' I told him
+that was the best I could do. 'But what is your price to Hibbard &
+Spencer?' As though every salesman must have laid away in a snug
+corner, a special price for that important firm! `I have given you my
+price; it is the best I can do with anyone.' They are not willing
+anyone shall make a cent but themselves; they want the whole apple,
+and are not willing to give the manufacturer the core."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+When I reached T. I had a very disagreeable duty before me, namely, to
+fix a misunderstanding with a customer. The house had written me:
+"Atkinsen & Co. bought a bill last October from Ned on 60 days' time;
+goods went exactly as ordered. When the bill became due we sent a
+statement, with a mem. that if not heard from in ten days we would
+draw. In reply they sent us a letter saying the goods were sold them
+under arrangement by which they are to be paid for when sold, and that
+we had better hold our draft, etc. We wrote that we did not do that
+kind of business; that our terms were plainly stated on the invoice,
+and that upon receipt of that, if not correct, they should have
+notified us at once. To this they sent a 'Smart Aleck' letter, and
+when we drew on them allowed our draft to be returned. Settle the
+matter up; take back the goods, if no better way suggests itself, but
+close it up. And close up our deal with them; they are the kind of men
+we do not want to do business with."
+
+To be ordered to get money out of a slow customer is bad enough, but
+to have to settle an account with a mean one is a thousand times
+worse. The slow customer is usually ready to dun himself, and full of
+apologies for his slowness, but the "Smart Aleck" who wants to be
+small has a hundred arguments ready at hand to prove that he is a very
+superior person who proposes to stand on his rights. Every traveling
+man has such customers as this "on his list," and is occasionally
+called upon to tackle them.
+
+I had made up my mind that I would find Atkinson rather tall and slim,
+but he wasn't; he was a pleasant-looking man, and I handed out my card
+as if I had called around to sell him a big bill. His face lost some
+of the smile when he saw the firm's name, but I began to talk of trade
+and the weather, and kept it up until I had forced him into an
+appearance of being sociable. Eventually I led the talk around to his
+stock and was fully prepared for his decisive "We do not need any." I
+mentioned guns, rifles, cartridges, caps--everything--but he was full.
+I was determined that he should introduce the subject of the account,
+and this he did when I made a move as if to go.
+
+"Did your house tell you about our account?"
+
+"They told me to stick to all the money I could get," I said,
+pleasantly.
+
+"Have you a statement of our account with you?"
+
+"I think I have." And I appeared to be searching for it, though, of
+course, I knew the exact page and line it was on. "Here it is:
+$43.30."
+
+He went to his ledger, found it correct, I suppose, and then from his
+cash drawer counted out the amount and asked for a receipt. I gave him
+one, thanked him for the money, and then remarked that I was sorry
+there had been any misunderstanding about the terms.
+
+"I like to see a house live up to its agreement," he said, in a surly
+tone.
+
+"Don't we?"
+
+"No, sir; these goods were to be paid for when sold."
+
+"But the invoice is plainly marked sixty days; why didn't you report
+such an agreement when you received the invoice?"
+
+"I don't care for the invoice. Don't I get any amount of invoices
+where all of the discount does not show? When I pay them I deduct the
+extra, and that is the end of it."
+
+I concluded a little plain talk would neither do us or him any harm;
+he was probably in a state of mind that would prevent him buying of us
+very soon again. I said: "I am satisfied that you have been long
+enough in business to know that staple goods, such as you had from us,
+are never sold on any such terms as you state you bought these at. I
+made inquiries about you of your neighbors, and every one said they
+had misunderstandings with you, and are not on good terms with you,
+and if I could see your correspondence I am pretty sure I would find
+we are not the only house out of town that you have had just such
+disputes with. I simply say to you, and for your own good, Mr.
+Atkinson, that you are making a mistake. My orders from my house were
+not to sell you, and while I know you can get along without us, you
+can't afford to keep driving houses away from you without hurting
+yourself. I'm obliged to you for paying me; that is all I came in here
+for."
+
+He told me that I and my house could go to the devil, and in that
+pleasant frame of mind we parted. I suppose I cut down the bridge
+between him and us, but I venture to say other houses had the benefit
+of my frankness.
+
+I spoke of this to an old traveling man whom I met at the hotel.
+"Yes," said he, "there's too much coddling among us all. We smooth
+over this, and give in on that, and the result is we make it all the
+easier for the fellow to be small the next time. I'm selling axes,
+and, of course, I have to warrant them. Do you warrant guns?"
+
+"Not to speak of."
+
+"Then you ought to thank your stars. Warranting is the most infernal
+device ever brought out to make men mean and dishonest. I put it down
+to the dealer, when I sell him, in the plainest way I know how, that
+we warrant an ax only against being soft or breaking from a plain
+flaw. When I come around in the spring he pulls from under the counter
+two or three or more rusty axes that he hands to me, with the remark
+that "here are some poor ones." I pick up an ax and find some idiot
+ground it as thin as a razor, and the edge broke out so that it looks
+like a saw, I ask him what is the matter with it.'Too hard; brittle as
+glass.' 'But I didn't warrant against being too hard.' 'But you expect
+your axes to stand, don't you?' 'This would stand if ground properly.'
+'Oh, yes; you fellows always have some loop-hole to get out of your
+warrant.' This rather staggers me, so I pick up the next one. 'What is
+the matter with this?' 'Soft.' As I hold the edge to the light I can
+see a slight bend in the bit. The man who used it had it stick, and in
+his efforts to loosen it, he had given it such a terrible wrench that
+the edge had bent a trifle. To a man knowing anything of the proper
+temper of an ax the fact of that slight bend is in its favor, and the
+work of grinding it out would have been much less than it was to
+remove the helve. But I pass that, as there is no use to argue that a
+slight twist does not show soft temper, and I pick up the third one.
+It has a corner broken off; the break is still bright, but I am calmly
+told there was a bad flaw there. I start to explain why I know, from
+the shape of the break that there was no flaw, but he twits me again
+with wanting to go back on my warrant, and I stop right there. Now,
+this is the history of nine out of ten transactions. The retailer
+takes back everything a customer brings back for fear of losing that
+customer's trade. The jobber takes back from the retailer, knowing it
+is unjust, but he is afraid that any hesitancy on his part will damage
+his trade. And the poor devil of a manufacturer takes it off the
+jobber's hands and cannot help himself. There is a deuced lot of
+cowardice in business nowadays. It goes back through the dealers till
+it reaches the consumer, and it encourages him to make any kind of
+claim he sees fit to cover his negligence, ignorance, or
+maliciousness."
+
+Sitting in the cars that evening, I overheard a traveling man say: "I
+find it a little bit harder each week to leave home. I have a little
+girl of three, and I see so little of her it makes me discontented.
+Her mother knows just what time I ought to come up the street, and she
+and the baby are watching for me at that hour every Saturday evening.
+When they see me the little one comes running to meet me. Her
+excitement and her running just take her breath away, so that when she
+gets to me she cannot speak a word. But she can squeeze me and kiss
+me. How I do hang on to her all the time I'm at home! I go to bed two
+nights in the week like a man should. I wake up to find those little
+arms around me! And on Monday morning I have to pull myself away. I
+tell you it's almighty hard."
+
+His voice had a tremor in it, as if a very little encouragement would
+bring tears.
+
+"Yes," said the other, "it is hard. I've been there. I had a girl six
+years old that was to me all yours is to you, and all she ever can be.
+I started off one Monday morning leaving her as happy as a lark. On
+Wednesday I was telegraphed to come in, and when I got home Thursday
+morning she didn't know me. Just as long as she could speak she kept
+asking for me. I never start out on a Monday morning but that I think
+of her, and I never walk toward the house Saturday night that I do not
+miss her. I don't know, but it seems to me that a traveling man has no
+business to have a wife and family."
+
+"I never knew you had lost a child," said the other; "if I should lose
+my baby I believe I would go insane."
+
+"Oh, no, you wouldn't; you would do just as every one else does; you'd
+go on and suffer. But the men that can be with their families seven
+days in the week ought to thank their God every hour of the day."
+
+"I travel a good deal by team," said a third, "and am frequently
+driving as late as 10 or 11 o'clock at night. As I go along the road
+and see the light shining out of the windows, and see family groups in
+their homes, gathered around the lamp, I tell you, boys, I get
+homesick. It's the time of day I want to be at home with my family. I
+envy every man I see in such a home, and I contrast his condition,
+surrounded with his wife and children, and a long night of rest before
+him, with my work. I finish up my day at a late hour at night, then
+perhaps have to get up at an unearthly hour in the morning to catch a
+train. There's mighty little poetry in this kind of a life."
+
+"But, after all," said the first speaker, "our wives suffer the most.
+They have the responsibility of the home and children on their
+shoulders all the time, and they worry more or less over us. My wife
+never sees a boy coming to the door with a circular but she thinks he
+has a dispatch saying I am either maimed or killed in a railroad
+accident. Then if the children are sick she has to shoulder the burden
+alone, and it is all the greater because she always tortures herself
+by believing that she must be in some way to blame. I tell you our
+wives have the hardest part to bear."
+
+"That's so," came from several.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+In a traveling man's experience no two days are exactly alike, and yet
+there is a monotony in the story of a trip because the history of one
+day is so much like the history of everyday. We sell to different men
+in different towns but the arguments on both sides are very much the
+same with all men. It is but rarely that a merchant admits that he
+needs anything in our line until after a certain amount of preliminary
+coaxing, and he never admits that prices are low enough.
+
+Some buyers meet one pleasantly, and are perhaps all the more
+disappointing. Their manner seems to promise success, but the result
+is failure. Other men start in rather snappish, as if the salesman was
+a nuisance, but gradually grow sociable, and if they give him an order
+he is forever their friend. He can not take "no" for an answer,
+because his experience tells him that the majority of buyers start out
+with a "no," and end by buying a bill. He must be persistent, because
+he has heard numberless times, "I will look at your samples if it is
+any comfort to you, but I won't buy," and in nine cases out of ten he
+has taken the man's order after all.
+
+The longer he is out on the road the easier his work grows, but it is
+not always true that his orders continue to grow larger. Friendship
+with buyers work two ways: the salesman may be able to press them to
+buy in a stronger manner than a stranger would dare do, and on the
+other hand the buyer can the easier put the salesman off. When he
+says: "You know well that if there was a thing in your line that we
+wanted you would get the order, but there is none," the salesman has
+to take it gracefully and hope for better luck next time. But a
+stranger, in the same line, calling there the next day, and mentioning
+each item in his list, may secure an order, and at no better price
+than the buyer's acquaintance would have given.
+
+For these reasons I have not given details of my trip so far as they
+concerned my own sales. It is enough to say that I was doing fairly
+well, not only in selling goods, but in making "valuable
+acquaintances." My house wrote me very pleasant letters, praising the
+character as well as the amount of my orders, and I looked to my going
+in with such anticipations of pleasure that the last six days of the
+trip seemed to have more hours than any arithmetic table of time ever
+put into them. Partly to kill time, and partly to make myself more
+"solid" with buyers, I spent nearly every evening with some of my
+customers, and listened to many bits of experiences that were worth
+more than money to me.
+
+One merchant said to me in his talk: "I have bought a great many goods
+of Wiebusch, and feel as much at home in his store as I do in any
+place outside of my own. And, while I do it because of dollars and
+cents, still there is something back of these that always turns the
+scales in his favor when his prices are no lower than his competitors.
+Twenty years ago I was clerk for a hardware house in the West, and
+about as ordinary a one as could be. One summer I made a trip East to
+visit some friends, and concluded to give myself a treat by taking a
+day or two in New York. I knew no one in the city personally; I knew
+the names of the houses my employers bought from, and for some reason
+that of F. Weibusch seemed most familiar. I put up at the Hoffman
+House. I laugh every time I think of it."
+
+"Did you feel overpowered?"
+
+"That's exactly the word. I was awfully overpowered. I had been used
+to dropping into the little country hotels where the landlord and
+clerk were at your service, and where you had to black your own boots,
+and carry your baggage around. When I dropped into the Hoffman with my
+grip in hand, and wrote my name in the register, and saw the
+overwhelming indifference in the eyes of the lordly clerk, I assure
+you I felt as small a potato as ever grew in a hill. I never felt
+quite so small and mean in all my life."
+
+"How did you get around?"
+
+"I got to the hotel about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I sat down in
+the office and tried to get my spirits up to the pitch of my
+surroundings, but it was a dismal failure. I felt that I was 'country'
+from crown to heel, and I was terribly uncomfortable. I happened to
+think of some familiar names, and among others of Mr. Wiebusch. The
+directory gave me his address, a porter posted me on street-cars and
+the way to Beekman street, and in due time I presented myself at the
+door. I felt timid about going in. I was only a clerk; I had no
+business on hand; I would simply be taking up some of their time in
+the store, and with no profit to them. But I went up stairs, and after
+telling a clerk who I was and whom I was connected with, was by him
+introduced to Mr. Wiebusch."
+
+"And your reception was a pleasant one?"
+
+"You may judge so when I assure you that I remember it vividly and
+kindly to this day, and shall always do so. He could not have been
+more cordial to the head of the largest house he dealt with.
+'Cordial,' mind you; not simply polite or pleasant. I was made to feel
+that I had paid him a compliment by calling upon him; that everything
+about the place was at my disposal; and that I could do him a still
+greater favor by permitting him to do something more for me. Now that
+was real kindness of heart; it was genuine courtesy, and I went back
+to my hotel not caring a continental d--m whether the clerk saw me or
+not."
+
+"Did you make other calls?"
+
+"Yes; the next day I called on a dozen houses, more or less, and was
+pleasantly met everywhere; I remember that; but I don't recall the
+name of a single one of them! You can see by this, from the
+distinctness with which I recall everything connected with my visit to
+Mr. Wiebusch, what a relief to me his kindness was."
+
+"Do you still go to the Hoffman?"
+
+"Not a bit of it. When next I went to New York I was partner in the
+house and the Cosmopolitan or French's were plenty good enough for me
+then."
+
+"Are there many men on the road now that were traveling then?"
+
+"Not a great many. Sam Disston was here to-day; he's one of the old
+stand-bys, and he doesn't look a day older now. These red whiskered
+men have the advantage of such fellows as you and I. I've grown gray
+in spots, but here's Sam still as red as when he first came out
+snapping a Disston saw. I'd like to have Sam to myself some Sunday
+afternoon and get him to tell the ups and downs of his goods. Henry
+used to talk saw and shout saw and swear saw, but he always sold them.
+I hung on to Spear & Jackson about as long as anyone did in this
+section, but I had to finally give in, and I was an ass for not taking
+hold of the Disston saw sooner."
+
+"It's a high-priced saw, isn't it?"
+
+"The Disston factory makes all kinds of saws. Look at this saw--
+pretty neat, isn't it? Full size, 26-inch blade; good handle; what do
+you suppose it is worth?"
+
+"I know nothing of saws; I couldn't guess."
+
+"Yes, you can guess. You know whether it looks worth 5 cents or $5."
+
+"Well, say $1.50."
+
+"That's close. You are a good guesser on saws. I buy that of Disston
+for $3 per dozen."
+
+"What! A Disston saw?"
+
+"I didn't say a Disston saw. It is made by Disston, but their name is
+not on it, nor is it any such quality as they would brand with their
+name. But they have a tremendous trade in goods on which their name
+never appears. I guess they are the largest saw manufacturers in the
+world."
+
+"Disston must have an easy job."
+
+"Don't you fool yourself. Sam has just as hard a job as you have. In
+the first place much is expected from him; then his goods being
+standard, are sold close by all jobbers, and they are inclined to push
+other makes, which can be bought cheaper. And on cheap goods it is
+entirely a matter of price, so he has to meet all the competition of
+every saw-maker in the country. I don't believe he has any easier job
+than you, or any other traveling man has."
+
+After selling a couple of cases of cartridges to a wholesale grocer
+one evening, he was led to tell of his early days, and I learned that
+no one trade contained all the shrewd men. Said he, "I once felt that
+our house was a very important one, and about as large as the State of
+Michigan. But one July I went down to New York, and sauntered into
+Thurber's, on West Broadway. I didn't expect to buy anything, but I
+thought Thurber would feel complimented by such a man as myself
+calling upon him. Their lower room looked rather busy, but not any
+more so than I expected, but when I got up stairs and found myself
+facing from fifty to seventy-five clerks I began to think Thurber's
+was a bigger business than mine. A boy led me to H. K. Thurber's
+private office, but there were several men ahead of me and I waited my
+turn. The longer I waited the smaller I kept growing. Mr. Thurber's
+face was one that you could study. One moment it lit up with a smile
+or happy thought, the next his mouth closed with a snap as if it was
+the combination lock of a safe-door. At his table was a chair for `the
+next,' and I felt as if `next' was going to be called out whenever I
+saw a man getting ready to arise. It was a pleasure to watch Thurber.
+The new-comer took his place in the vacated chair, told who he was,
+what was his business, and Thurber had a 'yes' or a 'no' ready before
+the man was through. 'We don't want it' came out sharp and decisive.
+'But if I could--.' 'We don't want it;' and this time the mouth closed
+tighter, and the man saw there was no 'buts,' and bowed himself out.
+Then to the next, and if his luck was better the bell was touched, and
+the boy who answered told: 'Show this gentleman to Mr. Whyland.' Here
+a letter was placed before him by a clerk, and after a glance at it an
+answer was dictated to the stenographer, who sat in a corner nearby.
+Long before it was my turn to bother him I felt so cheap that I would
+have sneaked off, but I was afraid some of the boys would take me by
+the collar and drag me back. Mr. Thurber met me pleasantly, and said a
+few words about our business that told me he knew something about us,
+and professed to be very much pleased at my call. Then he sent for Mr.
+Whyland and insisted upon my allowing him to show me about the store.
+Whyland had but lately returned from his European trip, and was just
+aching all over to sell goods. You know how that is, don't you? Take
+any good salesman who has been out of the harness for awhile and when
+he gets back again to work there's more enjoyment in selling a bill of
+goods than in drinking a bottle of champagne. I swore to myself that I
+wouldn't buy a cent's worth, but before I got away from Whyland I was
+down for $13,000 worth of goods."
+
+"Whew! It was a dear visit."
+
+"Not at all. I needed the goods and bought them low, so that it was
+all right. But Whyland turned me over to Frank Thurber. Frank is the
+politician of the concern; the greenback, anti-monopoly, mugwump man!
+He beamed on me as if he was Venus rising out of the sea; patted me on
+the back; said I would own all of Michigan in a few years, and he was
+coming out to get some points from us wide-awake Westerners; then
+filled my pockets with his anti-monopoly speeches and papers, led me
+to the top of the stairs, gave me his benediction, and I left. It was
+an experience. No opera that I ever listened to, no ball that I ever
+attended, contained so much genuine pleasure for me as I got out of
+that visit. But I went away satisfied that our house had still room to
+grow before it would be the biggest in the trade. It does a man good
+to see what a small concern he is occasionally."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+"I can tell you one thing," said a hardware man to me, "there is a
+good deal of forcing down of prices done by traveling men that is
+entirely uncalled for. Here comes a man to me selling auger-bits. I am
+full, and I tell him so. He enlarges on the superior quality of his
+goods. I admit them to be good, but my stock is too full for me to
+think of adding to it. He thinks it possible there will be an advance,
+as at 70 and 5 per cent. off the list there is a positive loss to the
+maker. I have no fears of an immediate advance, and say so. Then he
+says: 'Mr. X., I am very anxious to get a small order from you; trade
+is not very brisk with me, and, as an inducement, I will give you an
+extra 5 per cent.' Knowing this to be lower than others are quoting,
+and feeling well satisfied that the goods are liable to advance rather
+than decline, when they change, I make out an order for him. But how
+is he going to justify that cut to his factory? It was absolutely
+uncalled for. It was not done to meet competition, but to beat
+competition, and was simply a bait to lead me to order when otherwise
+I would not have ordered."
+
+"But," said another man, "go back of that a little. At 70 per cent.
+discount the maker is barely getting back 100 cents for what actually
+costs him one dollar. He is trimming as close as he can in everything
+to keep him from loss; wages are cut down, economy in material
+practiced, and every detail scrimped to the last possible limit Then
+this order comes in from the salesman at a still lower figure. No
+further scrimping can be done in material--that has a limit that
+cannot be passed--where, then, can any saving be made? Only in the
+wages. The workmen are shown the prices that the goods are now sold
+at, and told that there is but one thing for the factory to do: to
+meet this 'competition,' or close up. And, of course, the meaning of
+this is another reduction in the already well-reduced wages. I
+declare, a man must have a good deal of gall to be drawing a salary of
+from $1,800 to $3,500 per year and ask a workman to take 10 per cent.
+off his wages of $1 per day."
+
+"Yes, and you will notice," said the first speaker, "that all this was
+done that the traveling man might have an order to send in, and not
+because of any requirements of competition or of demand and supply.
+When I read of workingmen striking I think of these things and wonder
+what they would do if they could see what we merchants see of
+unnecessary cutting in prices. Manufacturers and jobbers send men out
+to present the merits of their goods, but their sole idea of a 'smart'
+man is one whose sales are large. If they have a dozen men on the
+road, the man who sells the most goods is the champion man. He sells
+big bills and is expected to cut prices. But one of the men who makes
+less show may be much the most profitable for them."
+
+"You would keep account of profits rather than of sales?"
+
+"Certainly I would, and pay salaries on that basis. Then the salesman
+would have strong inducements to get good prices. As it is now all he
+need ask himself is: 'Will the old man stand the cut?' and if he does
+it is as much a feather in his cap to make the sale as if it was at
+better prices. Take the matter of steel squares. One of my men writes
+in that a Cleveland jobber is selling them to the smallest trade at 75
+and 10 per cent. off. I investigate and find that they can be bought
+at 80 off. But the several manufacturers shake their heads and say
+this price is a positive loss, etc., etc. Then what the d--l do they
+sell at that price for? Neither dealers nor consumers were complaining
+of the old prices, and all the extra stock that is sold by the cut
+goes on to the dealers' shelves. The decline is made to a few jobbers,
+and they at once start out their men to give it to the retailers, and
+to use it as a bait, and when other jobbers learn it they combine to
+squeeze the price down so that all can get it. This is a sample of
+generalship that the square makers ought to be ashamed of."
+
+"Yes, but the carriage-bolt men of the country have been playing just
+that same kind of a fool game for several years. Who is benefited? No
+one, unless it is the big wagon concerns, or the big machine men. I am
+told that men in bolt factories at present prices do not make $1 a
+day. Why should they work for starvation wages so that the concerns
+using bolts can save 40 per cent on their purchase? It's a cursed
+outrage! The older manufacturers can stand it, because they just
+coined money a few years ago, but now they must squeeze their poor
+devils of workmen down in order that they can sell goods at nothing.
+If the Knights of Labor were devoting themselves to righting wrongs of
+this kind, the whole country would back them up."
+
+"I often feel sorry for some of the concerns," said the other, "when I
+have met the 'managers.' I came back from New York three years ago and
+told my partner if Lawson & Goodrow could make money as their New York
+office was run, that no one else need worry about his business. Here
+was an old concern, with every facility for making goods cheap, with a
+reputation for quality second to none in the country, with experienced
+workmen, and a good hold on the trade, yet they failed a year or two
+ago, and made so bad a failure I supposed they were swamped forever."
+
+"But they are going on."
+
+"Yes; I'm glad to see it, and understand that new brains have taken
+hold of it. But think of putting in as manager of such a business a
+young man just out of college! He was a very pleasant gentleman; I
+remember him with a warm sense of his courtesy, but he did not know
+the A, B, C of business. Fancy such a man competing with Oakman or
+Charley Landers!"
+
+"You've got to get up early to get ahead of Landers.'
+
+"Yes, Landers is a man of resources and thoroughly understands human
+nature. I rode down on the New Haven boat with him one night, and I
+spent two very pleasant hours on deck talking with him. He makes a
+good impression on you, both as to his shrewdness and his breadth. You
+get the idea that he is not small in his methods, and that he has an
+active mind. I imagine that when he took hold of the management of his
+concern, after Jim Frary had stepped down and out, he had about as
+unpromising a job on his bands as a man could have. Frary was a
+terrible cuss to pile up goods, I'm told, and the stock was in
+horrible shape. But Landers rode through the storm, and his business
+has seen some mighty prosperous years."
+
+"Did you know Rubel?"
+
+"Of Chicago? Yes, indeed. Poor fellow, I received a card a day or two
+ago announcing his death. He ought to have been good for twenty years
+yet. I bought some of his patent goods sixteen or eighteen years ago,
+and sold more or less of his brand ever since. His plant in Chicago
+shows what was in him. I hated, like thunder, to sell his goods when
+they were branded 'Chicago,' but when he changed that to 'American' I
+bought as freely of him as from others. He was jovial, sociable, and
+wide awake. I wish he might have lived to enjoy his well-earned
+success."
+
+"What has become of Jim Frary?"
+
+"I have lost sight of him. If any man ever had a good chance to make a
+strike I think Frary is the man. With Weibusch back of him, furnishing
+money and brains, with a combination in prices on a profitable basis,
+and with the boom in business, that concern ought to have made piles
+of money. But it is not generally supposed that they did. Frary has
+become temporarily eclipsed, and General Trunk manages it as if it was
+an orchestra. I don't know if he gets much music out, but he probably
+enjoys bossing things; that's worth a great deal to him." [Footnote:
+As is known to the trade, within a very few weeks after the above
+article was written the Frary Cutlery Co. failed, and have since been
+sold out under the hammer. And prices of table cutlery are once more
+"booming."]
+
+"Don't you like Trunk?"
+
+"Like him? Of course I do. You would if you were to meet him. He's one
+of the most unassuming and gentle-mannered men you ever met. If he
+only had a little confidence in himself he would be the Napoleon of
+the table cutlery trade, but he is inclined to listen to everybody's
+advice and not assert himself."
+
+"I had a deal with Frary once that amused me. I had been handling a
+small, one-bladed knife that we paid about 40 cents per dozen for. We
+made quite a leader of it, but were told, in answer to our last order
+sent, that the stock was out. We tried to get it two or three times
+afterward, but without success. The next time I saw one of the men I
+asked him why the dickens we couldn't get that knife again. 'We have
+given it up,' I was told; our cost book showed the cost to be 36 cents
+per dozen, so we supposed we were getting our money back, but somebody
+had the curiosity to foot up the items not long ago, and found an
+error in adding of 20 cents; the knife had really cost 56 cents! Fancy
+a concern doing business in that way!"
+
+"There are any numbers of just such concerns. Every little while you
+see changes made in prices to correct errors. There's a deal of
+guessing done around factories, and also a good deal of figuring on
+what a competitor does. One man learns of a competitor making a
+certain price, and says, 'If he can sell at that, I can,' and that
+becomes his price, without his even knowing that he is making money or
+losing at these figures."
+
+"I think a good many dealers sell goods by guess, as well as the
+manufacturers. This is especially true of retailers. A level-headed
+man, named Root, has got up a series of cost cards that will be of
+help to the hardware trade, but other lines need them just as much."
+
+"But all the cards in the world will not keep the blank fools from
+selling goods at cost. Here is an item in an Eastern paper about two
+Connecticut concerns who sold 'crazy cloth' (whatever that is) under
+each other's price, till at last one fool offered it at 1 cent a yard,
+and then the other came down to ten yards for 5 cents. That was in
+Sargent's town; probably they had been listening to his free trade
+slush."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+I fell in with a jolly crowd of commercial men, some salesmen and some
+heads of houses, at the Tremont, and I have rarely enjoyed an evening
+more. Of course there were any number of stories told, many jokes
+cracked, and a deal of chaffing of each other. But if I could have
+written down all the points made about business they would have been
+eagerly read by my present audience. One man was cursing the
+book-keeper, as is usual, when a merchant said:
+
+"There are always two sides to every question, and there is a good
+deal to be said from the book-keeper's stand-point. Other things being
+equal, a man who has had office experience makes the best man on the
+road. Very much of the trouble caused by the book-keeper's letters
+might be avoided if the traveling man knew enough, or had a little
+forethought. You say things to your customers ten times worse than the
+book-keeper ever writes, but a letter looks much more severe than the
+words you said sounded to the ear. One salesman when collecting will
+take pains to get certain bills balanced. If the customer offers to
+pay $50 on account and there is a bill of $53.36 due, or two bills of
+that sum, he suggests that it would be a good thing to make the
+payment that amount and wipe these out. Such a man helps the office at
+home. Another man takes the $50, and does not care a cent if anything
+is balanced or not. It may be necessary to have a scapegoat in every
+concern, but the traveler who runs down his office for doing its duty
+is not smart, and is sowing seed that will grow up to bother him in
+the near future."
+
+"Yes," said another merchant, "and there's a sight more book-keeping
+than there is any need of. Every little item has to be charged, bill
+sent, statement sent, and then receipted for when paid. If a jobber
+wants an ax of a special size, just one, and has to order it from the
+factory, although he knows the exact cost, it never enters his head to
+send in cash with the order. He must have as much red-tape over it as
+if the order was a thousand dozen axes. So the retailer; if a customer
+wants a gross of screws sent on at once by express, the charge of 22
+cents has to go through all the departments. There's too much of it.
+It's expensive in time, and foolish."
+
+"Don't talk of paying in advance," said a salesman, "we're mighty glad
+to get the money after it's due."
+
+"Yes, I know; there's too much work there, too. Although the buyer
+knows the exact time that his bill is due, he is getting so of late
+that he will pay nothing until a statement is sent, and not then till
+it pleases him. Your small man, not in the amount of business, but
+small-minded, dearly loves to hold back until you have sent him notice
+of draft made on him; he at once sends on a remittance then and his
+little soul takes comfort in telling, when the draft on him is
+presented, 'I do not owe them anything; their bill is paid.' Or else
+he waits till the draft is presented and dishonors it because it is
+drawn 'with exchange.' But there ought to be a keener sense of the
+honor to be won in paying bills promptly. If Dun and Bradstreet were
+to put in a third rating to show whether dealers paid promptly or not,
+and whether mean in little things or not, it would be of vast help."
+
+"How would you have it?"
+
+"Why, as it now is, we are told that John Smith is worth $2,000 to
+$5,000, and his credit good. I would add another column, and show
+prompt pay, slow pay, unpleasant in collecting, etc. You now trust a
+man on the basis of his capital and credit, but if you knew he was a
+smart Aleck you would not care to sell him no matter how much he was
+worth."
+
+"Well, boys," said a New York man, "I don't have anything to do with
+the collecting, and I'm mighty glad of it. It's bad enough to sell
+goods without having to squeeze the pay out too. But I had a case the
+other day that surprised me a little. Last October I sold a bill to a
+concern in Canton, Ohio, on 60 days. When I started out this spring
+the book-keeper told me the bill was still unpaid. He said he sent
+statement in January, then drew through the Canton bank in February,
+but draft was returned unpaid. I told him the concern was good, and I
+didn't understand it. I was in Canton in April and intended to speak
+to the concern about our bill; but when I went into the store one of
+them met me very cordially, said our goods had gone well and he wanted
+some more. I took it for granted they had paid up, or they would not
+be so ready with another order, so sold them a bill and said nothing
+about the old one. But here is a letter from my house asking if
+anything was done about the October bill, and telling me it has not
+yet been remitted to them. Blest if I understand it! The longer I
+travel the more I get puzzled."
+
+"Well, quit cutlery and go selling coffee."
+
+"Coffee?"
+
+"Yes, coffee. There are three things that must be selling well in
+these days: soap, tobacco, and coffee. Just look at the advertising
+pages of the papers and magazines. You see nothing but these three
+things and patent medicines. But then you expect patent medicines, so
+they don't count. Soap! Great Caesar! It's in everything. 'Queen
+Soap, 'Sulphur Soap, 'Ivory Soap', 'Pears' Soap,' and all the other
+soaps. The advertising is by all odds the largest expense, and the
+poor devil of a retailer is expected to sell at about 5 per cent.
+margin. Then see the whole country painted red on tobacco. And now
+we're catching it on coffee. If Arbuckle isn't a nephew of Barnum's he
+ought to be, for he knows how to advertise. I long ago gave up eating
+bread made from baking powder, because each manufacturer proved the
+other fellow's goods were poisonous, and I don't know but I must give
+up coffee since the advertisements expose how easy it is to doctor it.
+But at present I'm sort of holding on to Arbuckle's, and when my
+confidence in that goes then I'm done for."
+
+"You are right," said a grocer. "Arbuckle has made an immense business
+in coffee, and made it by his brains. It's encouraging to see a
+concern get out of the rut and show folks that the end of everything
+hasn't been reached yet."
+
+"Seems to me," said a manufacturer, "that you grocers have done more
+to demoralize business, by your gift enterprises, than any other class
+has done. Is the thing holding its own?"
+
+"No, there is a decided feeling growing against it. The large
+wholesale grocers of New York, Austin, Nichols & Co., say, in a
+recently published letter:
+
+"'We do not believe in "gift schemes" of any sort, and are not in the
+"give away" business. When the time arrives (if it ever does) when we
+are unable to sell good goods on their respective merits we will
+quietly retire from business.'"
+
+"And a Ypsilanti, Mich., grocer writes: 'One fellow carries a shotgun
+around with him, another a saw, but they principally run to clocks. Of
+course you don't have to pay anything for these fine articles,
+provided you buy the goods which call for them (in your mind). The
+retailers, too, now are striving their very best to see which can give
+the most with a pound of baking powder. That is, a great many
+retailers are. They do not seem to care anything about the quality, if
+they can only give the largest prize. Quality is not considered at
+all. They buy the thing for the great prize offered. When the retail
+merchants of this country shut down on this despicable way of doing
+business and sell goods on their merits, without a prize package
+attached, just so soon will a blow have been struck at the root of the
+whole matter.' These pretty fairly represent the growing sentiment
+among large and small traders of brains. They see that the moment an
+article ceases to be sold on its merit, just that moment a dealer is
+losing his hold on trade. I met a man from Ohio on the cars a day or
+two ago. He had been sent out to Iowa by his house to sell coffee and
+spices on the prize-package basis. He said he was almost turned out of
+doors by the Iowa merchants as soon as be had told his story. The
+dealers there said they wanted no goods that had to be worked off in
+that way, and had no confidence in goods that could not sell
+themselves. Now that was a healthy sign."
+
+"When I see it," said another grocer, "I at once assume that the
+concern is sending out cheap goods, or that it has been losing trade
+and catches at this straw to save itself. When an old and reliable
+house like Lorillard goes into the give-a-prize-away-with-every-
+package business, it only goes to show to what an extent this matter
+is carried on. The Lorillards are now introducing a tobacco called
+'Splendid.' They say it is a 'splendid' thing, makes one feel
+'splendid,' etc. If it is, why not sell it on its merits; advertise it
+in a legitimate way; make the price an inducement, and if it is a
+splendid article the public will soon find it out. Lately they have
+been offering a pack of cards with every 10-cent piece, besides giving
+a first-class cutter to the retailer with a single box, and a
+combination truck and ladder with five boxes."
+
+"It is really one sign of the hard times. When business recovers
+itself, and that time is not so far distant, consumers will not be
+attracted by the cheap gifts. Every day they are being educated to
+understand that they pay for all their 'gifts,' and pay well, too."
+
+"In times like these you can't blame men for jumping at everything.
+Every buyer wants 'a leetle adwantage,' and, like a Chicago man that
+the boys tell of, tells you your price is 'stereotyped' unless you cut
+down below every one else. So dealers try low prices and try gifts,
+but by and by they will have to sell on a rising market, and things
+will change."
+
+"You think prices will go up?"
+
+"They must go up, and it is right that they should. There is no reason
+why the girl at work at a loom should starve just that your wife
+should save a cent or two a yard on her gingham dress. Wages must go
+up, and goods advance too."
+
+"But if wages advance and the cost of living advances too, where is
+the girl to be benefited?"
+
+"Don't fool yourself on that stuff; that is the stale argument of some
+of the smart young men who write for posterity. Rent is probably as
+high to-day as it was when wages were twice as high. The prices of
+flour, pork, and beef are regulated by the crop, not by the buyers'
+wages. If I were hammering at an anvil I would take my increased wages
+and pay increased prices if I had to, and feel pretty sure I was going
+to be benefited. There are some theories, like this one and
+free-trade, that sound very plausible, but do not stand any chance
+when actual tests are made in every day life. The cry of all merchants
+to-day should be, 'Pay decent wages to your help and add it to your
+goods.' And any factory that held out ought to be boycotted. I know
+it's a mean word, but it is a good one for use with mean men."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+The last day on the road must always seem a long day. One figures out
+just what train he will take, the hour he will arrive at the end of
+the journey, and the minute he will be with his family or in the
+store. I had reached my last day and was putting in my "best licks" so
+as to have a good batch of orders to carry in with me, to make my
+welcome all the greater. But as luck would have it no day of my trip
+had been so uncertain and tantalizing.
+
+I spread out my revolvers before four concerns and enlarged upon their
+remarkable qualities and low prices. "Bulldogs" had stiffened in price
+at the factories to $2.25, less 10 per cent., and our stock was large
+and bought at low prices. I used this as a bait wherever I could, but
+every other man had been throwing out offers of the same kind, and
+mine were not so greedily taken as I would like to have had them.
+
+"No use of your offering baits," said one party "there's no life in
+the gun business any more. Here's Lafoucheaux guns at $7, Flobert
+rifles at $2, Smith & Wesson revolvers at $8, and the deuce knows
+where it will stop. Things must be mighty dubious when S. & W. have to
+cut their prices. Here's Reachum's last billet doux on rifles, quoting
+them at about 5 per cent, above cost, and yet you expect me to give
+you an order. No, it's no use; I must wait till somebody wants to buy
+something that I have."
+
+"Do you say that about all your lines?"
+
+"Well, it's mighty near it in everything. Here's an order from my man
+on the Central for a quarter dozen steel squares at 75 and 10 off;
+cost me that a month ago. Here's strap hinges at 65 and 5 off; I paid
+that for them. There's a milk-strainer, sold at $1.25 per dozen, cost
+me $1.20; carpet tacks sold at $1.50 gross, cost me $1.44. All these
+things in one bill. I tell you I am getting rich fast."
+
+"I am going in to-night," I said, "and would be glad to carry in a
+little order for you. I'll get it out myself and see that nice goods
+are sent you."
+
+"No, I don't want anything."
+
+I heard almost a similar complaint from the next one I saw, but I
+managed to secure two orders for my day's work, and then I was done. I
+never paid a hotel bill so gladly or bought a railroad ticket with
+happier feelings. There was a pleasure in getting my baggage checked
+home, and no car ever seemed to me quite so comfortable and inviting
+as the one I rode home in.
+
+When I walked into the store it was difficult to believe that I had
+been out of it more than twenty-four hours. The bill of goods on the
+floor looked exactly like the one I saw there the day I started away.
+The porter and drayman seemed to be talking about the same accident or
+"wake" that they were engaged in when I last saw them together, and
+the white head of the "old man" was bent over his books as if it had
+never moved. I couldn't help saying to myself, "How glad they ought to
+be that they have only to do the work that comes to them, instead of
+feeling the responsibility of creating new business."
+
+They met me as if I had been off on a lark, and ought to feel grateful
+to them for doing my work while I was away. I wondered if I was ever
+ass enough to meet our old travelers in any such way. I guess I was.
+
+"Well, old boy, had a good time?"
+
+This from stock clerk, from salesman, from the packer, and from the
+book-keeper.
+
+Good time! Great Caesar!
+
+Good time! With a constant dread about you that you are going to fail!
+Pushing yourself boldly into men's offices a dozen times a day, yet
+always nervously dreading the reception they may give you. Catching
+late trains and early trains; missing meals or sitting down to tables
+where things are so uninviting you cannot eat. And all the time, day
+and night, wondering if your employers are satisfied with your sales
+and if they recognize the necessity of your cutting prices. A good
+time! If there is any business in the world that is so little of a
+"good time" I would like to know what it is. The firm met me very
+pleasantly. They joked me a little about my new beard and the extra
+fat they declared they saw on me, and then the welcomings were over.
+
+I took my place at my old desk with a firm resolution to let other men
+do the traveling; I would stick to the store.
+
+"Come home to supper with me," said the head of the house; "I'd like
+to talk over your trip with you, and we can do it better at home this
+evening."
+
+This was an honor I had not had before. The other boys looked at me
+with envy.
+
+"How have things gone? Has business been good?" I asked my old
+assistant in the stock.
+
+"Things have gone so-so; trade has been only middling. But you did
+first rate, old fellow. I heard the old man say you were a success."
+
+"Did he say that?"
+
+"Yes, and lots more. You made a strike."
+
+This was pleasant news.
+
+After our tea that evening the head of the house began to question me
+about my trip, and I saw that a detailed story of it was what he
+wanted. So I began with the first town that I had stopped at, and gave
+him a history of the trip. He seemed to enjoy it, and to pick up a
+good many items from it.
+
+"Yes," he said, "business is becoming less profitable every year. The
+idiots who are going to get rich by selling flour at 25 cents a barrel
+less than cost, simply by doing a h--l of a business, are multiplying.
+Reachum can probably sell goods close and make money, as he has no
+traveling men; his principal expense is his postal cards. Simmons &
+Hibbard can sell our goods low because it is only one department of a
+large business with them, and its proportion of expenses is not great.
+We will be compelled to do either less or more; either do a smaller
+business in guns and ammunition and at less expense, or to put in
+other goods and drum a larger variety of trade. We have pretty much
+decided to do the latter. What do you think of it?"
+
+I laughingly suggested that in Cleveland and Indianapolis some of the
+houses were adding a silver mine to their stock, and that we ought to
+have one too.
+
+"And then compel the traveling-men to buy or not give them orders?
+That would be a good scheme. But I had not thought of that. Our plan
+is to lay in a line of goods that will work in well with general trade
+and sell all the year round."
+
+I said I thought it was a capital idea.
+
+"Will you give up the stock and go on the road regularly?"
+
+What? Go on the road regularly? Not a bit of it. Keep on, month after
+month, year after year, hammering after orders? No, oh, no!
+
+"Then you don't like it?"
+
+No, I did not. There was altogether too much anxiety about it for me.
+There were men so constituted that they did not feel worried whether
+they got an order or not. They were the proper men to travel. But I
+was nervous and anxious, and worried when I had no order for fear I
+was not going to get one; and then worried after I had one, fearing I
+would not get any more. No, I was not made of the right kind of stuff
+for a traveling man.
+
+"If I did not see that you are so thoroughly in earnest I would say
+you are sarcastic. You evidently believe what you say, but you do not
+seem to understand that the very reason why you will make a successful
+salesman is this nervous dread of failure. When you meet a man who
+doesn't care a copper cent whether trade is good or not you have met a
+second-rate man. Trade can only be secured by persistent and hard
+work. A man of your disposition will be pulling wires and ingratiating
+himself into the good will of his customers, while your contented man
+is playing billiards or making acquaintance of a sport of the town.
+Taking into consideration the times and the condition of business,
+your trip has been a remarkably successful one, but the second one
+will be a better one for the house, and a pleasanter one for you. You
+will then call on acquaintances, not on strangers, and you will find
+your task easier and your trade better. Think it over. You will be
+more valuable to us on the road and it will pay you better."
+
+But I swore I would not consider it. Afterwards I fancied I might
+think of it. Then I did consider it, and yes, here I am. I represent
+the firm of Blank & Blank, Guns and Ammunition. If you are in need of
+anything in my line I would be glad to figure with you, for I am
+
+                          A MAN OF SAMPLES.
+
+
+
+
+HIS LAST TRIP.
+
+
+[ILLUSTRATION]
+
+Morgan had been on the road for one house about 20 years. This is a
+long period of travel. In less time than that most men work up or work
+down. No man can continue on a dead level as a salesman during that
+time, even if his habits are good. If he has ability he is sure, with
+rare exception, to work himself off the road. If he is mediocre no one
+house can afford to carry him for twenty years. Morgan was the rare
+exception just mentioned. He was an excellent salesman, and his
+ability and success but served to weld him the closer to his work. The
+house had made him a partner long since, but the business he
+controlled was so large and so profitable, that they all knew, and he
+best, that to withdraw him and experiment with a new man would be but
+playing with fire over a magazine of powder. So he went on his way
+year after year, making no plans for the future that would change his
+work or his life.
+
+But his family, consisting of his wife and their one daughter, Mary, a
+romping girl of twelve, was not of his disposition, These two could
+not see husband and father start off without a protest. The wife had
+always on her heart a burden of anxiety about him; of dangers on
+railroads, of his possible robbery and murder; of the discomforts of
+hotels, and the fear of his falling sick among strangers. She was
+naturally a timid woman, and the responsibility of the house weighed
+upon her. The whole burden of Mary's growth in body and mind, her
+training, her companions, and her pleasures were matters the mother
+would gladly have shared with the father, but she was generally
+compelled to decide them alone.
+
+The father's continued absence was a constant pain and grievance to
+Mary. There was never a week but that she felt deprived of some
+special outing because he was not at home to go with her. Saturday
+night and Sunday, if he was where he could run home, were so many
+solid hours of happiness to them all, but to Mary they were full of
+perfect bliss.
+
+Morgan was known to all his friends as a man who never worried. If a
+train was late he sat down and waited; if a customer failed he always
+signed a compromise; if he didn't get the best room in the hotel, he
+took what he could get; and he lost no sleep in picturing how his
+competitors might get ahead of him. He always left home with the
+assurance that everything would go on all right until he returned, and
+when he went away he thought of the two he loved as being happy and
+well.
+
+But as he started on this trip, he could not shake off a slight
+feeling of anxiety that had possessed him all the night, and had grown
+since he awoke. Their talk the previous day had been about the
+entrance Of diphtheria into the neighborhood, and of the fatal case
+but two blocks away from their door. Mary had complained of a slightly
+sore throat, but on Monday morning declared it was entirely well
+again, kissing him good-by with more spirit than usual, as if trying
+to convince him of the truth of her words, and send him away assured
+and happy.
+
+When he was seated in the cars the shadows came over his spirits again
+and began to torture him with doubts and possibilities. It might be,
+he thought, that her sprightliness of the morning was due to fever,
+rather than to health. He wished he had looked into her throat, and he
+regretted that he had not cautioned his wife about her. He nursed
+these fears until he felt himself becoming wild with apprehension, and
+then he resolutely put the thoughts aside, declared he was foolish and
+would have no more of it, and devoted himself to a companion and to
+his papers.
+
+Men cannot always govern their minds. These are kingdoms that
+frequently rebel against all government. Several times during the day
+Morgan caught himself going back to his morning thoughts and he
+resolutely changed the current. But at night, try as he would, he
+could not conquer them. Even his dreams took up the forebodings of the
+day, exaggerated and intensified them, and tortured him. Next morning
+found him out of sorts, nervous, and miserable. He had a long drive to
+take in the country, but he shrank from it as if he saw danger in his
+track. All his intuitions seemed to be crying to him to go home, but
+what he thought was his common sense kept insisting that he should go
+on with his business, and not cross the bridge of trouble until he
+came to it.
+
+The day was one of the loveliest October days he had ever seen. His
+drive was through twenty miles of the best corn land of Illinois. The
+black road was as dry as a board, and as level as only a prairie can
+be. The first effect of the beautiful day and pure air was
+invigorating. He enjoyed the drive through the street into the country
+road. Then the broad fields, the pleasant farm houses, the herds of
+horses and cattle, the long Osage hedges, the perpetual but always
+surprised rabbit at the road side, all these attracted and entertained
+him, and his ride was successful in driving away his blues. His
+customer seemed especially glad to see him; took him to his house to
+dinner; talked with him of important personal matters, and gave him a
+large order for goods. He turned back to the railroad feeling as happy
+as he had ever done; took out his order-book and figured up the amount
+of the bill and the profit, as was his custom, and then began to sing.
+
+Suddenly there came across him a wave of anxious worry, and all his
+thoughts flew back to the daughter's sore throat, and the funeral he
+saw last Sunday. He could not drive these away. They clung to him;
+they whispered to him; they unfolded themselves like a panorama, and
+on the canvas he saw Mary sick, then worse, and then dead! It was the
+longest twenty-mile ride that he had ever taken, and his old friend,
+the landlord, concluded from his face that Morgan had met with bad
+luck in sales that day.
+
+He had a night run to Decatur and determined that he would telegraph
+to the house, and quiet these nervous apprehensions that were so
+cruel, though probably so absurd. It would cost but little, he
+reasoned, and though foolish, it was wiser than to continue to be torn
+by doubts. So before going to bed he gave the operator a half rate
+message, for morning delivery, as follows:
+
+To Manning, Morgan & Co., Chicago, Ill.: Is my wife or daughter sick?
+Answer, care Gilsey.
+
+C. MORGAN.
+
+He felt easier having done this, and passed a better night than the
+previous one, although there was in all his sleeping and waking
+thoughts an under current of solicitude over impending danger to Mary.
+
+With an attempt not to be anxious, yet terribly apprehensive at heart,
+he tore open the telegram that reached him about 9 o'clock:
+
+To C. Morgan, care Gilsey & Co., Decatur: Come home first train.
+
+MANNING.
+
+Good God, what was this! Were his forebodings indeed true? If so he
+was all the more totally unprepared for the truth. His constant
+comfort had been that his fears had not the slightest foundation to
+rest upon, and the more they crowded upon him the surer he had been
+that they were flimsier than dreams. But here staring him in the face
+were those four ominous words:
+
+"Come home first train."
+
+Why had they not given him the whole story? He started for the
+telegraph office to send for further particulars, but stopped. Suppose
+Mary was dead! Did he want to learn it here, so far from his wife? No;
+he would wait. Such a story would unfold soon enough. There were
+several hours before a train went his way; the discipline of twenty
+years asserted itself, and he attended to his business.
+
+The ride home was one that can be understood in its depths only by
+those who have been similarly circumstanced. The train seemed to
+creep. The minutes were like hours. The stops seemed to be
+interminable, and every mile nearer home seemed to be proportionately
+longer than the previous one. He reached the city at dark. The store
+was closed. He had expected to find Manning there, but he suddenly
+remembered that he had not telegraphed to him the time of his arrival.
+As he neared his home the first glance showed him there was a change.
+The lower part of the house was in darkness, and only a dim light
+shone in the front chamber, which was but rarely occupied.
+
+"They have laid her there," he said to himself, and all his soul cried
+within him in anguish. His poor wife! How she must have suffered, to
+have gone through all this alone! What a brute he was to go away
+Monday, when he ought to have known, and did know, that something
+dreadful was upon them! He reached the door; it was fastened; he would
+go to the other side and enter quietly. But some one heard his step,
+and, opening the door, called him back.
+
+"Is it Mr. Morgan?" The voice was that of a neighbor.
+
+"Yes." He passed in, expecting to see or hear his wife. The friend
+closed the door and turned to him.
+
+"Have you heard--," she began.
+
+"I have heard nothing; is Mary--," he broke down. The door beside him
+opened.
+
+"Oh, papa!"
+
+Give him air! What mystery was this?
+
+"Mary, is it you? Are you alive? Why, I thought--I feared--Oh,
+darling, is it you?"
+
+Yes, it was Mary. Oh, thank God! Thank God!
+
+"Tell me again, dear, are you well?"
+
+"Oh, yes, papa, but poor mamma!"
+
+"Mamma! What of her? Is she sick? What is it? Tell me quick!" And
+again he was pushed from the heaven of happiness to the bottomless pit
+of doubt. "Is mamma sick? where is she?"
+
+"Oh, papa, the doctor says she is going to--"
+
+"Hush," said the neighbor. "Step inside, sir; the doctor is with her
+now; he will soon be down. Prepare yourself, Mr. Morgan; your wife is
+very low. The servant's carelessness caused an explosion in the
+kitchen, setting herself on fire; your wife ran to her assistance and
+saved her life, but, I fear, at the expense of her own."
+
+"I must see her."
+
+"No, sir, not now; be guided by me for a moment. The doctor will soon
+be down."
+
+He took Mary in his arms and they wept together. Oh, if his wife, his
+darling wife! were to be taken from him! It was the cruelest blow God
+ever struck! And she saving another's life, too! He cursed and raved,
+but it was in his own heart; and Mary, crying on his breast, only knew
+what comfort it was to have her papa once more with her.
+
+The physician came down with manner so grave that it told its own
+story. "There is scarcely a chance," he said; "you can go to her; she
+will not know you."
+
+"When did this happen?"
+
+"Monday evening."
+
+"Have you consulted others? Can nothing more be done?"
+
+"Nothing except to help her to die easy."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *       *      *
+
+But she did not die. She knew her husband. He begged of her to live,
+as only a man can plead whose soul is bound up in a woman's life, and
+whether love, or whether medicine, or whether care saved her, I do not
+know. But she lived. But Morgan informed Manning that his traveling
+days were over; that a new man must be engaged for that route. They
+found him, after diligent search, and much to the surprise of everyone
+connected with the house, he sold more goods for the firm than Morgan
+had ever done. The one who rejoices most at this is Morgan, who says
+he has made his last trip.
+
+
+
+
+"LET US KICK."
+
+[The following sketch by M. Quad in the Detroit Free Press, will be
+new to some of our readers, and will, we think, be appreciated by them
+all.]
+
+I really and truly believe that the day will come when the kicker will
+be classed where he belongs and be entitled to the reverence due him.
+I look upon him as a philosopher and a philanthropist. He stands forth
+one man out of ten thousand. He is actuated by the most unselfish
+motives. He is the real reformer.
+
+I am not a kicker. I am simply taking the preparatory lessons to
+enable me to blossom out. The other day when I bought a ticket to go
+east they told me at the ticket office:
+
+"While the train does not leave until about eleven, the sleeper is
+open at nine, and you can go right to bed and wake up at Niagara Falls
+next morning."
+
+I entered the sleeper at half-past nine and went to bed. That is, it
+is called going to bed. You are boxed up, boxed in, surrounded and
+smothered and charged two dollars for the misery. A sleeping-car is a
+mockery, a fraud and a deception. The avarice of the companies results
+in misery for the passengers. Four other persons had gone to bed, and
+at ten o'clock we were all asleep. At that hour two men entered with a
+great clatter. They were talking loudly, and they sat down and
+continued. I waited fifteen minutes for one of the other sleepers to
+kick. No one uttered a protest Then I rose up and asked:
+
+"Do you men know that this is a sleeping-car?"
+
+"We do," they answered.
+
+"And do you propose to continue this disturbance?"
+
+"We propose to talk as long and as loud as we please!"
+
+I called the conductor and inquired:
+
+"I have paid for a berth in which to sleep. I can't sleep for this
+disturbance. Will you stop it?"
+
+"Really, I can't," he answered.
+
+"Are there no rules?"
+
+"Yes, but people in a sleeping-car must expect to be disturbed."
+
+"Oh, they must. Very well--see me later."
+
+Four others came in with just as much racket, and they kept their
+chattering going until eleven o'clock. At half-past eleven the lights
+were turned down and everybody was ready for sleep. I had been
+patiently waiting for this. Lying on my back, arms locked over my head
+and my palate down, I brought a snore which went thundering over that
+car in a way to open every eye. After two more a man called out.
+
+"Thunder and blazes, but we've got a whale aboard!"
+
+After three more they began to yell at me from every berth. I put in
+two extra ones, and the porter came down and shook my arm and said:
+
+"Heah--you--stop dat!"
+
+"Colored man!" I said, as I looked up at him, "if you come here and do
+that again I may fire upon you!"
+
+As soon as he had gone I went back to business. When a man sets out to
+snore for revenge you'd be surprised to know what a success he can
+make of it. In five minutes they were calling for the conductor. He
+came down and parted the curtains and said:
+
+"Hey--you--wake up! You are disturbing the car.
+
+"Conductor, haven't I paid for this berth?" I asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is there any rule which prohibits snoring?"
+
+"No, but--"
+
+"Then you keep away from me! I have a revolver, and I might take you
+for a robber!"
+
+Then I returned to the main question. I snored in every key of the
+scale. I snored for blood. I had every person in the car swearing mad
+and ready to fight, and they sent for the passenger conductor. He
+refused to interfere. Several chaps volunteered to "pull me out o'
+that," but when they came close enough to see the muzzle of a revolver
+they fell back. At two o'clock in the morning they held a convention,
+and as the result one of them asked:
+
+"Stranger, can we buy you off?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Is there any way on earth to stop that bazoo of yours?"
+
+"The four of you who came in last were grossly selfish. You had no
+care for the rights of others. The four who were here before I came
+were disturbed but hadn't the grit to kick. Now, then, promise me on
+your solemn words that if you ever enter a sleeping-car again you
+will respect; the situation, and I will let you off."
+
+Every soul in that car made the promise, and half an hour later we
+were all asleep.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Man of Samples, by Wm. H. Maher
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MAN OF SAMPLES ***
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