Confessions of a Tradesman

by Frank Thomas Bullen

This seems, in these desultory confessions, a right and fitting place to set forth the fact that in many of my customers I found friends. By which I mean people who think about you, who would take trouble for you, or would make sacrifices to help you, who grieve over your misfortunes and rejoice when you are doing well. And how precious they are. I have always been a great stickler for the proper definitions of words such as Freedom, Love, Friendship, Truth; and I do wish people would not lightly talk of friends when they only mean some casual acquaintance who knows little of them and cares less. I can frankly assert that the only pleasant recollections I have of my shop-keeping days, connected with business that is, are associated with the many kindly folks whom I served. Of course my particular business lent itself to closer relations with customers than ordinary shop-keeping, since I had to discuss their desires with them, and give them the benefit of my experience. The one drawback attached to this was that I often spent three or four times as long discussing a trifling order as it was worth; but that was counterbalanced by my sometimes getting a big order with a very small amount of talk.

It did occasionally happen that I, as the Yankees happily and metaphorically put it, struck a snag even in this, and one glaring instance lingers luridly in my memory. A neighbouring tradesman, with whom I was on most friendly terms, very kindly gave me an introduction to a well-to-do customer of his at Tulse Hill. My friend was a builder and decorator, and had done a great deal of work for this gentleman, to their mutual satisfaction. So when, one day, his customer asked him about getting some old English frames regilded he recommended me, and did not, in ordinary business fashion, stipulate that he should have a commission upon the transaction. Cheered by my friend's description of his customer, I waited upon the latter, and was received in the most jolly fashion as a guest, and not in any patronising spirit, refreshments being produced and some pleasant general talk ensuing. I was then shown the work and asked for an estimate. This I gave after close calculation, and with due consideration of the fact that my customer had probably obtained other estimates before asking for mine.

But to my intense amazement, the gentleman, upon hearing the sum named, immediately said that he could get the work done in the best style for just one quarter of the sum I had named! Now there was nothing for me to do but give him the lie direct had I obeyed my first impulse. But I stifled it, and mildly said that such a price as he had quoted meant gilding with German metal, as the quantity of gold leaf required to cover those frames would cost three times the sum. He, of course, said that he didn't know anything about that, the price given him by a gilder in the Minories was for English gold. I then rose to go, saying that I regretted not being able to go further in the matter. He then said he did not want to disappoint me, and what was the lowest I could do the job for? I replied quietly that I had quoted the lowest possible price for regilding, and one that was less than half what would be demanded by a big West End firm, but that if he cared to have the frames renovated and touched up where necessary I could meet him with an estimate of half the first amount quoted, but explaining fully that this would be in no sense regilding. After a lot of talk he agreed, and I undertook the work.

My kindly gilder, for I could not do the work myself, never having been able to master the delicacy of touch required in this exceedingly technical operation, made every effort, as he always did, to help me to make the best of a bad bargain, cutting his price as I had cut mine. And he did his touching up so well, that when the work was finished I felt that my customer would say that it would have been a waste of money to have had those frames regilded, they looked so well. Now my part of the work so far consisted in getting the six heavy frames to my shop from Tulse Hill, having first removed the pictures from them, and the completion of my task would be to return them, fitting the pictures in again and hanging them; and my share of the profits were almost precisely what a carrier would have charged for the job. But in the meantime, my customer had removed to Clapham Common, and the task of delivering those frames, which required the most careful handling, was thereby vastly increased in difficulty. However, I tackled it successfully by the aid of the gilder, who, wanting his money, agreed to wait at a neighbouring hostelry until I should return with the spoil.

My customer's satisfaction at the way in which the work had been done could not be concealed, and indeed the pictures did look very fine when in position. Then he asked me nonchalantly if I had brought the bill. I handed it to him. He glanced at it and said, "Oh! you have made a gross mistake. You agreed to do the work for £2 pounds, and this bill is for £5." For a moment I was speechless, and then replied as calmly as I could, "I have made no mistake, sir; you wanted me to do the work for £2, and I told you it was impossible. I have to pay my gilder £4. 5s., and he is now waiting for the money at the Plough."

"Well," he rejoined casually, "that's nothing to do with me; you'll get £2 or nothing. You can please yourself."

Now I am anything but a courageous man, but I felt desperate, and although he towered over me like a giant with a very threatening air, I said, quite coolly, "You owe me £5 for work done, and I shall not leave this house until I get it," at which he laughed merrily and retorted, "Ah! so that's your little game is it? Very well, stay here until I'm tired of you, then I'll throw you into the road." So I sat down on the nearest chair (I was then in a partly furnished drawing room), and resigned myself to wait. Fortunately, there was a book there, Kipling's "Light that Failed," and I began to read.

Now strange as it my seem, so great is the power of detachment from circumstances over which I have no control that I have always possessed, that I read that book through with the utmost enjoyment, only an occasional cross current of compunction traversing my mind for the weary wait imposed upon my faithful coadjutor. I had finished the book about a quarter of an hour, which means that I had been in the house nearly four hours, when the gentleman came in and said, with assumed surprise, "What, you here still? How much did you say you wanted?" "£5," I replied quietly. "All right, here you are," he answered, holding out a £5 note to me. I took it, examined it, said "thank you," and walked out of the house.

Tame ending, was it not, to such a dramatic situation, and tamer still the fact that my only sensation was one of satisfaction that I had got the money. I joined my gilder, who was, I regret to say, distinctly the worse for liquor, having had, as he said, no option but to beguile the long afternoon by taking eight special Scotches for the "good of the house." However I explained the situation to him, handed him his money, and made haste home feeling that if ever I had earned fifteen shillings in my life I had done so on this occasion. In conclusion of this episode, I regret to have to add that my friend who had recommended me to this "genial sportsman," as I heard somebody call him, had the grievous misfortune to lose £50 of hardly earned money due to him from the same merry gentleman. I cannot trust myself to comment upon this behaviour which, alas, is all too common among a certain class who habitually live beyond their means and regard the poor tradesman as fair game. If they can only borrow from him as well their delight seems proportionately heightened.