"But our credit man, a most upright gentleman, wasn't particular about taking up the account again. However, there I was on a commission basis! I knew the man would pay for his goods and that it was money in my pocket—and in the till of the house—to sell it.
"I had seen my man at the hotel the evening before and he'd said he would be around the next morning about ten o'clock. I went down to the store before that time and talked the thing over with the credit man.
"Don't want to have anything to do with that fellow,' he said. 'He skinned us once and it's only a matter of time until he'll do it again.'
"The head man of the firm came by about that time and I talked it over with him. He had told me only the day before that he had some 'jobs' he was very anxious to get rid of.
"'Now,' said I to him, 'I believe I have a man from New Orleans who can use a good deal of that plunder up on the sixth floor if you're willing to sell it to him. He uses that kind of "Drek" and is now shaped up so that he'll not wish for more than sixty day terms, and I'm sure he'd be able to pay for it. He's just failed, you know.'
"Well, let him have it—let him have it,' said the old man. 'Anything to get the stuff out of the house. If he doesn't pay for it we won't lose much.'
"'All right, if you both say so, I'll go ahead and sell him.'
"This was really building a credit on 'jobs,' for I believed that my man would after that prove a faithful customer,—and this has been the case for many years.
"Well, when he came in, I took him up to the 'job' floor and sold him about five hundred dollars. This was the limit that the credit man had placed on the account. Then came the rub. I had to smooth down my customer to sixty day terms and yet keep him in a good humor. He thought a great deal of me—I had always been square with him—and he wasn't such a bad fellow. He had merely done what many other men would have done under the same circumstances. When he had got into the hole, he was going to climb out with as many 'rocks' in his pocket as he could. He couldn't pay a hundred cents and keep doing business, and it was just as much disgrace to settle for sixty cents on the dollar, which would leave him flat, as it was to settle for thirty-five. So he argued!
"I brought him up to the credit window and said to the credit man— Gee! I had to be diplomatic then—'Now, this is Mr. Man from New Orleans. You know that cotton has been pretty low for the past season and that he has had a little misfortune that often comes into the path of the business man. He, you also know, has squared this with everybody concerned in an honorable way,—although on account of the dull times he was unable to make as large a settlement as he wished to—isn't that the case, Joe?' said I. He nodded.