"He handed me out two ten dollar gold pieces.
"'Here' said I, slapping down one of the slugs and shoving it over to him, 'Here's ten dollars for ten minutes of your time. That's yours now,—take it! I've bought your time and I dare you come down to my sample room. If you do, I'll make that ten back in less than ten minutes and you'll stay with me an hour and buy a decent bill of goods.'
"Well, sir, the old man wouldn't take the ten—but he did get his hat and he's been an easy customer ever since!"
"Second and last call for dinner," called the dining car boy again.
"Guess this is our last chance," spoke up one of the boys. Then, stretching a little, we washed our hands and went in to dinner.
CHAPTER IX.
TACTICS IN SELLING—II.
After we had finished dinner, all of the party came back to our "road club room," the smoker.
"The house," said the furnishing goods man, sailing on our old tack of conversation, "sometimes makes it hard for us, you know. I once had a case like this: One of my customers down in New Orleans had failed on me. I think his muhulla (failure) was forced upon him. Even a tricky merchant does not bring failure upon himself if business is good and he can help it, because, if he has ever been through one, he knows that the bust-up does him a great deal more harm than good. It makes 'credit' hard for him after that. But, you find lots of merchants who, when business gets dull, and they must fail, will either skin their creditors completely or else settle for as few cents on the dollar as possible.
"Well, I had a man in market, once, when I was traveling out of Philadelphia, who had 'settled' for 35 cents on the dollar. He had come out of his failure with enough to leave him able to go into business again, and, with anything like fair trade, discount all his bills. I knew the season was a fairly good one and felt quite sure that, for a few years anyway, my man would be good. What was lost on him was lost, and that was the end of it. The best way to play even was on the profits of future business.