Tales of the Road

by Charles N. Crewdson

"The same day that my order reached the house came a letter from Benzine stating that he had looked over his copy and he wished they would cut off half of several items on the bill. Ah, he was shrewd, that old guy. He was working for credit. He knew that if he wrote to have part of his order cut off, the credit man would think he was good. My house couldn't ship the bill to him quickly enough, and they wrote asking him to let the whole bill stand. He was shrewd enough to tell them no, that he didn't wish to get any more goods than he could pay for. That sent his stock with the house a sailing. But the old chap wasn't done with them yet.

"About six weeks before the time for discounting he wrote in and said that as his trade had been very good indeed they could ship additional dozens on all the items that he had cut down to half-dozens, and in this way he ran his bill to over $1,300."

"Well, you got a good one out of him that season, all right."

"Yes—where the chicken got the ax. As soon as Old Benzine had run in all the goods he could, he did the shipping act. He left a lot of empty boxes on his shelves but shipped nearly all of his stock to some of his relatives, and then in came the coal-oil can once more."

"Didn't you get any money out of him at all?" one of the boys asked.

"Money?" said the shoeman. "Did you ever hear of anybody getting money out of Old Benzine unless they got it before the goods were shipped? If ever there was a steal-omaniac, he was it, sure!"

With this, one of the boys tossed a few crumbs to the gold fish. The turtles, thinking he had made a threatening motion toward them, quietly ducked to the bottom of the pool. The white-capped cook took the turkey from before the fire. The water kept on trickling over the ferns but its sound I soon forgot, as another hat man took up the conversation.

"Most merchants," said he, "are easy to get along with. They have so many troubles thrown upon them that, as a rule, they make as few for us as they can. Once in awhile we strike a merchant who gets smart—"

"But he doesn't win anything by that," observed the clothing man.

"No; you bet not! I used to sell a man down in the valley who tried a trick on me. I had sold him for two seasons and his account was satisfactory. Another man I knew started up in the town and he was willing to buy my goods from me without the brands in them. I remained loyal to my first customer in not selling the new man my branded goods. In fact, about the only difference between a great many lines of goods is the name, as you know, and a different name in a hat makes it a different hat. In all lines of business, just as soon as one firm gets out a popular style, every other one in the country hops right on to it, so it is all nonsense for a salesman not to sell more than one man in a town when the names in the goods are different, and the merchant, when such is the case, has no kick coming on the man who sells one of his competitors.