Bulder realized at once that Fellows was strongly against the stamps, and that it was going to be a battle of wits and logic. I had better confess that my sporting blood was roused, and I had decided that the fellow who won the argument would have me on his side.
"What do you know about the company?" I asked Fellows, so as to get things started.
"Not a thing," he said, "but I am sure that that is a matter of minor importance; for Mr. Bulder is too big a business man to connect himself with an organization that is not thoroughly sound."
Very neatly put!—and yet I could see that, even if the trading stamp proposition won, Bulder would still have to prove that his company was financially and morally sound.
How I wish I could write down in full detail all that was said by both of them, but I can't remember it all. Bulder started in with a few heavy blows by stating that the Garter trading stamps gave the merchant who handled them a decided advantage over his competitors; for their splendid premium catalog, their numerous supply stations, the fact that they would let me have a set of representative premiums for window display, the excellent line of advertising matter which he said was part of the service which I bought from them at the time I bought their stamps. . . . "You quite understand, Mr. Black," he said laboriously, "that you are not buying just trading stamps from us, or trading tokens as we prefer to call them, but you are buying a merchandising service—you are buying all the selling ideas and helps which we can give you, besides the splendid backing which the name of Garter stamps gives you.
"And," he continued to Fellows, for he knew that Fellows was the opposition and not I, "when Mr. Black takes up our agency, no other hardware man in town will be able to get it. . . . In fact," he said, with a sudden burst of generosity, "so that there will be absolutely no question of full protection and no competition, we will not even supply a glass and china store, a five-and-ten-cent store, a cutlery store, or a novelty store—in fact, any other store which might compete with him in any way.
"Thus, you see, I am offering you something, Mr. Black," he said with an ingratiating smile, "which is a wonderful advantage to you. It will really put your store in a class by itself."
"Fine!" broke in Fellows, before I could say anything. "A thought has just occurred to me, however. While you promise that no other hardware man shall have the Garter stamps, can you promise that no other trading stamp concern will offer stamps to any other hardware man in Farmdale?"
Bidder replied with a deprecating smile: "What other concerns are there of our importance and size?"
Fellows came back with the names of two concerns which were better known to me than the Garter trading stamp.