"I want to tell you something, Potash," Gans replied. "Jay Vanderbilt ain't got money enough to hire it a good shipping clerk, because for the simple reason there ain't no good shipping clerks. A shipping clerk ain't no good, otherwise he wouldn't be a shipping clerk."
"How about drummers?" Abe asked. "I ain't
come to ask you about shipping clerks, Gans; I come to ask you about a drummer."
"What should you ask me about drummers for, Potash?" Gans replied. "You know as well as I do what drummers is, Potash. Drummers is bluffs. I wouldn't give a pinch of snuff for the best drummers living. The way drummers figure it out nowadays, Potash, there ain't no more money in commissions. All the money is in the expense account."
Abe laughed.
"I guess you got a tale of woe to tell about designers and models, too, Gans," he said; "but with me, Gans, so long as a salesman could sell goods I don't take it so particular when it comes right down to the expense account."
"Oh, if they sell goods, Potash," Gans agreed, "then that's something else again. But the way business is to-day, Potash, salesmen don't sell goods no more. Former times a salesman wasn't considered a salesman unless he could sell a customer goods what the customer didn't want; but nowadays it don't make no difference what kind of salesman you hire it, Potash, the goods is got to sell themselves, otherwise the salesman can't do no business. Ain't it?"
"But take a salesman like Marks Pasinsky, for instance," Abe said. "There's a feller what can sell goods. Ain't it?"
B. Gans looked up sharply.
"