Tales of the Road

by Charles N. Crewdson

"Well, sir, this man was mad as fire at the agencies, and for years and years he would have absolutely nothing to do with them, but I finally told him: 'Look here, Dick; now this thing is all right but there's no use fighting those fellows. Why don't you get what's coming to you?' And I talked him into the idea of getting out after a right rating, and told him how to go about it.

"One day, in another town where he had started a branch store, he met one of the representatives of the agency that had done him dirt, and said to him: 'Now, Mr. Man, I sometimes have occasion to know how various firms that I do business with over the country stand, and if it doesn't cost too much to have your book, I'd like to subscribe.' 'Well, that won't cost you a great deal,' said the agent. My friend subscribed for the agency book, and in the next issue he was reported as being worth from ten to twenty thousand dollars. Another agency soon chimed in and had him listed as worth from five to ten thousand and with third-grade credit. Now, one or the other of these wrong—and the truth of the matter is that both of them had slandered him for years; he hadn't made ten to twenty thousand dollars in ninety days. And just to show you how much good that rating did my friend, he soon began to receive circulars and catalogues galore from houses which, before that time, had turned him down."

"The worst feature of turning down an order," said the drygoods man, "is that when you have an order turned down you also have a customer turned away. I was waiting on a man in the house. He was from out West. He was about half through buying his bill. The account was worth over twelve thousand a year to me. He thought so much of my firm that he had his letters sent in my care and made our store his headquarters while in the city. One morning when he came in to get his mail I saw him open one of his letters and, as he read it, a peculiar expression came over his face. When he had read his mail I asked him if he was ready to finish up. He said to me, 'No, Harry, I want to go over and see your credit man.'

[Illustration: What explanation have you to make of this, sir?]

"I went with him. One of the old man's sons, who had just come back from college, had taken charge of the western credits. The old man would have been a great deal better off if he'd pensioned the kid and put one of the packers in the office, instead. My customer went up to the credit boy and said to him: 'Now, Mr. ——, I've just received a letter from home stating that you've drawn on me for three hundred and eighty-five dollars. What explanation have you to make of this, sir? I have always, heretofore, discounted every bill that I have bought from this establishment, and this bill for which you have drawn on me is not yet due.'

"'I'll look the matter up,' said the young credit man. He looked over his books a few minutes and then tried to make some sort of an explanation in a half-haughty kind of a way. My customer interrupted him right in the midst of his explanation and said, 'Well, you needn't say anything more about this, sir. Just see what I owe you.'

"This was looked up and my customer right then and there wrote his check for what he owed and said to me:

"'Old man, I'm mighty sorry to have to do this, but I cannot interpret this gentleman's conduct (pointing to the credit man) to mean anything but that my credit is no longer good here. I shall see if there is not some one else in the city who will trust me as I thought that this firm was willing to trust me. This thing hurts me!'

"I couldn't explain matters in any way, and my customer—and my friend!—walked out of the store and has never been back since. That piece of Tom foolery on the part of our snob of a credit man lost the house and me an account worth over twelve thousand dollars a year."

"That fellow," broke in the clothing man, "should have got the same dose that was once given a credit man in the house I used to work for. He had been turning down order after order on good people, for all of us boys. When we came home from our fall trip we were so dissatisfied that we got together and swore that we would not sign a contract with the house unless the credit man they had was fired. We all signed a written agreement to this effect. Also, we agreed, upon our honor, that if one of us was fired for taking the stand, we would all go.