"As I went into the store a minute before six, Alex was pacing up and down the floor. My samples were spread upon the show case.
"'Eff you vant your samples, dake 'em avay yourself. Do you subbose I raice poys to vait on draveling men?' said Alex. He was keeping up his bluff well.
"With this I began to stack together my samples.
"'Vait! Vait!' said Alex, 'Aind you choing to gif a man a jance to puy some choots?'
"'Sure,' said I, 'if you want to, but I thought you were going to wait until you went into market.'
"'Vell, you vas a taisy,' said Alex; and in three minutes—he was the quickest buyer I ever saw—I booked an order for six hundred dollars.
"'Now, I see,' said Alex, as he shook hands and started home, 'Vot you vanted mit dot udder cart.'"
Strategy will win out in business, but not deception. The traveling man who wishes to win in the race of commerce, if he plays sharp tricks, will get left at the quarter post. It is rather hard, sometimes, to keep from plucking apples that grow in the garden of deception, especially if they hang over the fence. I sat one night beside one of the boys who was sending out his advance cards. He was making his first trip over a new territory.
"Blast it!" said he, tearing up a card he had written.
"Don't swear, or you'll not catch any fish," said I.