Tales of the Road

by Charles N. Crewdson

"He and George went to work to straighten out the goods according to price. They put a nine dollar hat where a twelve dollar hat should have been, and vice versa. They put a twenty-four dollar hat where a twenty-four dollar hat belonged, and an eighteen dollar hat right beside it, indicating that the two were of the same quality. The next hat I handed them was one worth sixteen dollars and a half a dozen. It contained considerable chalk that made it feel smooth. After examining the 'sweat,' name and everything they both agreed that this was a twenty-seven dollars a dozen hat. When they did this, I said:

"'Gentlemen, I will torture you no longer. Let me preface a few remarks by saying that neither one of you knows a single, solitary, blooming thing about hats. Here is a hat that you say is worth twenty- four dollars a dozen. Look at the brand. You have it on your own shelves. You have been buying them of this quality for six years at eighteen dollars a dozen. And, what is worse still, here is a hat the price of which you see in plain figures is sixteen dollars and a half, and you say it is worth twenty-seven dollars a dozen.'

"The faces of Williams and George looked as blank as a freshly whitewashed fence. I saw that I had them. Then was the time for me to be bold. A good account was at stake, and at stake right then. Besides, my reputation was at stake. When a salesman loses a good account the news of it spreads all over his territory, and on account of losing one customer directly he will lose many more indirectly; for merchants will hear of it and on the strength of the information, lose confidence in the line itself. On the other hand, if you can knock your competitor out of a good account it is often equal to securing half a dozen more. I did not wish to lose out even for one season, so I said: 'Now look here, Williams, you have bought this other line of goods, and perhaps you feel that you have enough for this season and that you will make the best of a bad bargain. You are satisfied in your own mind, and you have told me as plainly as you ever told me anything in your life, that my goods are better than those that you have bought. I am going to tell you one thing now that I would not say in the beginning: that you have bought from a line of samples the goods of which will not equal the samples you have looked at. It is not the samples that you buy but it is the goods that are delivered to you. Those which will be delivered will not be as good as those which you looked at. You know full well that my goods have always come up to samples. You know that they are reliable. Why do you wish to change? If you wish to change for the sake of making an additional twenty-five cents on each hat instead of giving it to my firm, why did you not take the hat which I have been selling you all the time for $18 a dozen and sell it for three dollars, the price you have always been getting for my twenty-four dollars a dozen hats? In that way you would make an additional twenty-five cents. Be logical! If that's not profit enough, why not sell a $15 or a $12 a dozen hat for $3? Be logical! If that's not enough, why not hire a big burly duffer to stand at your front door, knock down every man who comes in so that you can take all the money he has without giving him anything. You could bury him in the cellar. Be logical.'

"''Fraid they'd put me in the "pen",' said Williams.

"'If I were a judge and you were brought before me charged with selling the twenty-one dollars a dozen hat that you have bought to take the place of mine (for which I charge you twenty-four dollars a dozen) I would give you a life sentence. Let me tell you, Williams, a man who is in business, if he expects to remain in the same place a long time, must give good values to his customers. In the course of time they will find out whether the stuff he gives them is good or poor. Go into a large establishment with a good reputation and you will find out that they give to the people who come to buy merchandise from them good values. Now, the goods I have sold you have always given your trade satisfaction. Your business in my department is increasing, so you say, and the reason is because you are giving to your customers good values. Why not continue to pursue this same policy? I am in town to do business and to do business today. I cannot and I will not take a turn down. If you want to continue to buy my goods you must buy them and buy them right now, even if you do have to take them right on top of the other stuff that you have bought. I shall make no compromise. My price is $1,000—more than you ever bought from me before.'

"'George,' said Williams, turning to his buyer, 'I guess Dickie has us. Give him an order for $1,000 and don't let's go chasing the end of a rainbow in such a hurry any more.'"

CHAPTER IV.

TRICKS OF THE TRADE.

The man who believes that on every traveling man's head should rest a dunce cap will some fine day get badly fooled if he continues to rub up against the drummer. The road is the biggest college in the world. Its classrooms are not confined within a few gray stone buildings with red slate roofs; they are the nooks and corners of the earth. Its teachers are not a few half starved silk worms feeding upon green leaves doled out by philanthropic millionaires, but live, active men who plant their own mulberry trees. When a man gets a sheepskin from this school, he doesn't need to go scuffling around for work; he already has a job. Its museum contains, not a few small specimens of ore, but is the mine itself.

Let your son take an ante-graduate course of a few years on the road and he will know to what use to put his book learning when he gets that. I do not decry book lore; the midnight incandescent burned over the classic page is a good thing. I am merely saying that lots of good copper wire goes to waste, because too many college "grads" start their education wrong end first. They do not know for what they are working. If I were running a school my way and the object was to teach a boy method, I'd hand him a sample grip before I'd give him a volume of Euclid. Last night a few ideas struck me when I thought my day's work was done. I jumped out of bed seven times in twenty minutes and struck seven matches so I could see to jot down the points. The man on the road learns to "do it now." Too many traveling men waste their months of leisure. Like Thomas Moore, in their older days they will wail: