“And the group of manufacturers I shall represent will have my Undivided Attention. I shall represent only the interests of the firms who are fortunate enough to sign up with me, and no other firm in America will be able to induce me to give them one single bit of trade information, no matter how many tears they shed.”
At this juncture nobody in the meeting thought to ask His Fur Collar how many firms he intended to represent. So he didn’t volunteer the information that he was out for a neat total anywhere from 40 and 4,000.
Then spoke up the President in an inquiring crescendo. “Just what cities, or whatever you call them over there, do you intend to visit?” he asked.
“Every metropolis in Europe,” flashed back the intrepid explorer as he began spreading a map of South Africa out over the desk, tracing with a pencil the various points he would touch on his daring expedition provided the domestic touch proved good enough to enable him to do so.
“I will sail from New York here (pointing to Cape Town) on the Acquatoonia on January 1st and my passage alone will cost me $350.00 for a 7-day trip or $50.00 a day before I even get to London. There it will cost me anywheres from $25.00 to $30.00 a day at the Sav-voy without counting Roast Lamb from the push-cart at Simpson’s which I understand is listing somewhat and from there I will cross the Channel to Paris and the channel trip alone will cost me $75.00 easily, and the tipping in Paris is fierce since the War.”
Here the coherent and logical trade commissioner was again not interrupted by anybody asking him if he had ever been in any of these places before, or had ever sold goods anywhere else on the face of the earth. So he very sensibly kept still on these points and continued to talk about the fierce expenses at every town he proposed to back into.
If any of his discriminating hearers at any time during the informing Foreign Trade discourse were interested enough in their own financial welfare to go through the enervating ordeal of dropping their chairs forward a few inches to take a look at his old bluff-map, he was not aware of it. Nor did any of them appear to wish to interrupt his forceful and lucid presentation of his program by asking him How About Orders or any other irrelevant thing like that.
They all merely puffed the old cabbagio, chins up and eyes on ceiling, and swung their legs as they watched the smoke rings float away from the bunk. Mr. Eazley Skinned broke in at one stage to tell about the big tips that Mrs. Eastbrook and her husband Jim Eastbrook said it cost them that time when they went to Euripp.
Things were coming along great and grand for the Bright Lad with the Grab Bag; so of his own accord he continued to elaborate his story. He told how he would distribute their catalogues and Price Lists wherever he went, and make regular monthly reports, and he explained how all orders that would flock in from the New York Export Houses would naturally be the result of his efforts and how the factory was to simply credit him with the commission on each shipment since he wouldn’t have time to always check up, being so busy selling goods all the time and so forth.
The Boss of the works here ventured to inquire how much that commission was going to be, and the Wise Gink modestly said 5% because he was leading up to something else. The Boss said 5% was fair enough and all whiskers around the room nodded affirmatively.