Gardiner smiled genially and measured off the cloth, but Burton observed that as he did so he had a crook in each thumb, which allowed about a half an inch of over-lap on each yard measured. Mrs. Mandle paid for her purchase, and left with a smile to Gardiner and a friendly nod to Burton, and said she would probably be in in a few days with a case of eggs and some other produce.
“Bring them right in here, Mrs. Mandle,” said Gardiner, as he closed the door after her. Coming back to the counter, he said to Burton, half-apologetically, “I forgot to tell you, Burton, to put up all prices on Mrs. Mandle. She is one of those dear souls who, as a matter of principle, will never buy unless they think they are getting some concession in price. It’s a simple matter to raise the price and drop it again, and it pleases them.”
Burton flushed a little. He had been brought up to believe that strict honesty was the best policy, and it seemed to him that the very foundations of his conception of business success were being swept away. These great merchant princes, who were lauded in the papers and welcomed in the most distinguished circles, were they men of high standards and noble principles, or were they consummate liars and cheats?
“I do not mean to question your methods,” he said, at length, “but—is it, such a transaction as that, I mean, exactly honest?”
If he expected Gardiner to be angry at his frankness his fear was soon dispelled.
“Why not?” laughed his employer. “The cotton is ours; we can sell it for what we like, can’t we? If we ask fifty cents for it that’s our business, or if we choose to give it away, that’s our business. These people who are always trying to beat us down really don’t mean any harm, and we don’t do them any harm. We just make them happy. Take Mrs. Mandle, for instance. She thinks she saved forty cents, and that thought will lighten her troubles for a week. As a matter of fact, she bought eight yards more than she needed, but no doubt it will come handy sometime.”
“I think I would give a real cut, if I pretended to,” persisted Burton.
“You can’t afford to. See, that ten-cent cotton costs me six and three-quarter cents. You may think I could sell at eight and get out on it. I can’t. Let me explain my position, so you will understand it better. Last year I sold thirty-seven thousand dollars worth of goods. My net profits were four thousand five hundred dollars, or just about thirteen per cent. Now, no matter what an article may cost me, if I give fifteen per cent. off the established selling price, I am losing money. Isn’t that clear? And as some people have the bargain mania, we have to give them fictitious bargains, just as the doctor prescribes fictitious drugs for patients who think they can’t get well unless they take something.”
Burton said no more, but he was not convinced.
A few days later a customer asked for a pound of fifty-cent black bulk tea. Burton found the fifty-cent bin empty. “I’m sorry,” said he, “but we appear to be out of the fifty-cent line. How would this suit?” and he was about to offer another brand when Gardiner, who had overheard the remark, called across the store, “That’s fifty-cent tea in the left-hand bin.”