The Long Salesman.
Wichita, Kans., 190—.
Dear Billy:—
Since I wrote you last I have learned a new lesson in tipping. I used to think that tipping was confined to porters, waiters and congressmen, but I have struck a new lead and I begin to think now that the man doesn’t live who is not either giving or taking tips, and the majority of them do both.
While stopping here at the Carrie Hotel I made friends with a traveling salesman for a lumber concern. My first meeting with him came near being my last; the little slim Jim stepped on my foot and I pasted him one in the jaw, then for a few seconds there was nothing doing and then there was. That little duffer jumped to his feet, pulled a thirty-two from his pocket and fired at me. The bullet went wide of the mark and before he could think to fire again, I had taken his gun away and was holding him and his gun apart, one in each hand. That one shot cleared the barroom of all but we two and the bartender, and he was lying full length on the floor behind the bar. The salesman and myself had both been drinking more than was good for us, but the shot had sobered me and I guess it had done as much for him. I gave him back his gun.
“You are a damned poor shot,” said I, “put up the popgun and let’s take a drink.”
We stood up to the bar and I called for the bartender, who managed to get up after a time and set out the red liquor. When the police arrived we were touching glasses and in answer to an inquiry as to where the man was who did the shooting, I answered:
“Couldn’t tell you, old man, we just came in; will you have a drink?”
The bartender, after he had waked up to the situation, explained that the man the police wanted had left by the rear door and that was the last we saw of the cops. The bartender then turned to us and ejaculated:
“Well, you two fellows do extract the sweet all right. Here you are chumming together and you don’t even know each other’s names. Just you have one on the house while I introduce you,” which we did and as we clinked the glasses, the bartender said:
“Bless you, my children! Harry Monroe never fired a truer shot than when he drew bead on Jack Henderson, for he brought down a friend—get together there,” and we drank and shook hands.
That was my introduction to Harry Monroe, and a whiter rounder never lived. The only trouble with him was he was obliged to divide his time between living and earning money to live on. Harry got to telling me about his selling lumber on the road and how he did it, but it looked a little punk to me and I told him so. After I said that there was nothing for me to do but to make a trip with him and see how it was done.
He was going to make a trip over a route that he had never traveled before, and he told me it would give me an insight into life that I couldn’t get in any other way. I went and the first town we struck was a little place up in northern Kansas, and the first office we got into was plastered all over with temperance signs. I took a look at Harry to see how he took it, but it never feazed him. He introduced himself to Mr. Brown, the proprietor, and then introduced me as his cousin and said I was traveling for my health. Then he dropped into a chair by the side of Brown and reeled off a string of temperance talk that would have put the average temperance lecturer in the ditch. I never knew what a fearful thing drink was before. Harry fairly cried when he told the dealer how his father and three sisters went to the bad on account of drink. Then Harry told him a story about a man who sold his wife’s washboard for drink, and, said Harry:
“Just think, she was the only support of her husband and six little children;” then they both cried. We spent two hours in that office and when it was almost train time Harry mentioned his business and took an order for eight cars of lumber. We made a quick get-away to catch the train, and I want to say right here that I was feeling sort of punk about that story of Harry’s three sisters. After we got seated in the car and I found I could not keep the destruction of Harry’s family out of my mind, I said to him:
“Harry, is your father dead?”
“Dead, well I should say not! He is preaching down in Swampscott, Massachusetts, and holding his own with the best of them.”
“And those sisters of yours?” I added.
“Oh, yes, those sisters, I see now. Well, you see Jack, I never had any sisters, that’s why I can put them to the bad so easy. It’s like this, Jack, every one you meet has to have what they call down south, ‘Lagniappe;’ in the north we call it perquisites or graft. In reality it is a tip given by one person to another. Now, a salesman is called on to give out more kinds of tips and give them out in more different ways than any other man that travels. Sometimes we give cigars, sometimes it’s a drink or a dinner, and sometimes soft-soap, and other times its tears, but to be a success on the road you must give something.”
“Don’t you ever make a mistake in giving?” said I.
“Never did but once.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Not much to tell, Jack. I gave a man the measles once and lost his trade.”
He was so nervous about that I felt for a moment that he had walked into some fellow’s office and handed out a package marked “measles,” expecting to make a hit by doing it.
The next dealer we struck was a little, under-sized, florid man, who had a twinkle in his eye that put you in good humor at once. This time Harry introduced me as a druggist out of a job, and Mr. Wise, the dealer, asked me if I was a good judge of spiritus frumenti.
“Try him,” said Harry, and Mr. Wise started for his sash house, motioning for us to follow. We went to the farther end of the sash house and there down inside a pile of sash Mr. Wise fished out a bottle of whiskey. I tasted of it.
“It’s rotten,” said I, and it was. Harry laughed and pulling a pint flask from his pocket, said:
“I told Jack to say that so I could offer you a pint of the best that’s made.”
It was good, and although Mr. Wise did not know the difference, he pretended he did and we didn’t do a thing to that pint bottle between us in about ten minutes. The talk of the morning had made me so dry I could hardly stand it. Harry got an order for three cars at that place and then nothing of real worth turned up for a couple of days.
It was always “nuts” to me to see Harry deal out the tips, as he called them, and when we struck a new lead and were working up a new game, he would say:
“I wonder what this geezer will take, cigars, whiskey, or soft-soap?”
One morning about eight o’clock we came in sight of a lumber yard with a small office; standing above on the top of the office was a signboard on which was painted Capt. J. J. Jones. I called Harry’s attention to it and said:
“How is that for conceit?”
Harry commenced counting on his fingers:
“One, two, three, four, five. That’s the checker, Capt. Jones, J. J., you are my meat. He needs the army tip and I’m the boy who can tip him.”
We walked into the office, there were three men there. Harry never hesitated a moment but walked up to one of them, held out his hand, and said:
“Captain Jones, I am pleased to make your acquaintance. There is not a man who ever fought in the Civil War that I would not go miles to see. I have always felt sorry that I did not live in those stirring times. What regiment were you in, Colonel?”
“The—the——Pennsylvania,” said Mr. Jones, “and there was no finer regiment in the service.”
The other two men had gone out of the office.
“Colonel,” said Harry, “it must have been grand to have led such a regiment as that on the field of battle; it must have been awe-inspiring to have sat there on the different horses that were shot from under you, giving your orders to the staff officers for this battalion to charge or that battalion to take a certain point of vantage. I can see you now, as you sat upon your milk-white steed, raise up in your stirrups and a determined look in your fearless face, wave your sword and say, ‘Follow me, men, victory is ours!’ Oh, but it must have been grand. I tell you, General, I cannot help but envy you just a little and I will confess why. During the Spanish War I enlisted seven times, and each time I was left behind because my height was too great for my width. It is awful, General, to be so afflicted. Now had I your commanding figure (Mr. Jones was round-shouldered and bow-legged), I might have died for my country, and had I a noble brow like yours (Mr. Jones’ forehead sloped back like that of an ape), I might at least have married the daughter of a Moro chief and been court-martialed after I got home for leaving her with my mother-in-law.”
Harry was really out of breath and Capt. Jones broke in and said:
“You don’t belong in this town, do you? Are you a traveling man?”
“Yes,” said Harry, with a sigh, “I am a lumber salesman, but General, tell me of some of the rivers you swam and of some of the hair-breadth escapes you have been through. I could stay here all day and feast on your words. You knew Grant and Sherman and Lee well, didn’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” said Capt. Jones, “I have seen them all, but say, what are two-by-fours worth, delivered here?”
Harry woke up with a start.
“By Jove, I must have forgotten myself.” He took a price list out of his pocket and throwing it on the desk in front of the captain, said:
“There are my prices, General, if you want anything pick it out, but let me sit down here near you and gaze on a man who at one time was a friend and confidant of General Grant.”
Talk about spreading it on thick, slush, and all that—well, when we left the mighty man of war, Harry had orders for seven cars of lumber.
“Gee! that’s a good order,” said Harry, “I wonder if the bow-legged old chimpanzee is good for that much all at once.”
One night we got into a dealer’s office about six o’clock; the dealer was just shutting up to go home. Harry always introduced me differently to every one we met and it happened that at this particular office he introduced me as a theological student. I was not at all surprised, as he had introduced me as almost everything.
The dealer invited us to go with him for supper. I wanted to cut it out, but Harry leaned towards the house, as I suppose he thought he saw an order ahead. When we sat down to supper, there were besides Harry and myself, the dealer, his wife and six boys ranging from twelve to twenty years of age. They had a whole roast pig for supper, but it was the smallest pig I ever saw, either dead or alive. I was hungry and as I looked around that table and saw the anxious eyes that were sizing up that pig, I could not help but think that if I could get one crack at it myself, that the rest of them would go to bed hungry.
We were all seated, but there was nothing doing. I looked to see what the trouble was; the old man was nodding at me. I glanced at Harry, he was grinning. I looked myself over to see what was the matter with me and then the old man spoke:
“Please ask a blessing, Mr. Henderson.” Then it occurred to me that Harry had introduced me as a theological student and the perspiration started out all over me. I knew every eye was on me and I looked at the pig for inspiration. The thought came to me that I must carry out the part if it took a wing. My eye rested on the pig as it stood on the platter on all fours, and its small size struck me more forcibly. I thought and before I could suppress the words, I had said my thoughts aloud:
“It’s too d——d small.”
The boys had been worked up to a high pitch by the size of the pig and the failure to get started right, and they gave a holler that shook the dishes on the table, the old man looked ugly, the old woman fainted and during the excitement Harry and I made a break for the door. We left that night; we had queered ourselves with the only dealer there. Harry was inclined to laugh the affair off, but it seemed to me as though I had made an awful break somehow. Say, but it was an awful little pig, though.
So long, Billy,
Jack.
THE ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT.
At The Mission School.
Jack
Henderson.