Conrad Lyte was a real-estate speculator. He was a nervous speculator. Before he gambled he consulted bankers, lawyers, architects, contracting builders, and all of their clerks and stenographers who were willing to be cornered and give him advice. He was a bold entrepreneur, and he desired nothing more than complete safety in his investments, freedom from attention to details, and the thirty or forty per cent. profit which, according to all authorities, a pioneer deserves for his risks and foresight. He was a stubby man with a cap-like mass of short gray curls and clothes which, no matter how well cut, seemed shaggy. Below his eyes were semicircular hollows, as though silver dollars had been pressed against them and had left an imprint.
Particularly and always Lyte consulted Babbitt, and trusted in his slow cautiousness.
Six months ago Babbitt had learned that one Archibald Purdy, a grocer in the indecisive residential district known as Linton, was talking of opening a butcher shop beside his grocery. Looking up the ownership of adjoining parcels of land, Babbitt found that Purdy owned his present shop but did not own the one available lot adjoining. He advised Conrad Lyte to purchase this lot, for eleven thousand dollars, though an appraisal on a basis of rents did not indicate its value as above nine thousand. The rents, declared Babbitt, were too low; and by waiting they could make Purdy come to their price. (This was Vision.) He had to bully Lyte into buying. His first act as agent for Lyte was to increase the rent of the battered store-building on the lot. The tenant said a number of rude things, but he paid.
Now, Purdy seemed ready to buy, and his delay was going to cost him ten thousand extra dollars—the reward paid by the community to Mr. Conrad Lyte for the virtue of employing a broker who had Vision and who understood Talking Points, Strategic Values, Key Situations, Underappraisals, and the Psychology of Salesmanship.
Lyte came to the conference exultantly. He was fond of Babbitt, this morning, and called him “old hoss.” Purdy, the grocer, a long-nosed man and solemn, seemed to care less for Babbitt and for Vision, but Babbitt met him at the street door of the office and guided him toward the private room with affectionate little cries of “This way, Brother Purdy!” He took from the correspondence-file the entire box of cigars and forced them on his guests. He pushed their chairs two inches forward and three inches back, which gave an hospitable note, then leaned back in his desk-chair and looked plump and jolly. But he spoke to the weakling grocer with firmness.
“Well, Brother Purdy, we been having some pretty tempting offers from butchers and a slew of other folks for that lot next to your store, but I persuaded Brother Lyte that we ought to give you a shot at the property first. I said to Lyte, ‘It’d be a rotten shame,’ I said, ‘if somebody went and opened a combination grocery and meat market right next door and ruined Purdy’s nice little business.’ Especially—” Babbitt leaned forward, and his voice was harsh, “—it would be hard luck if one of these cash-and-carry chain-stores got in there and started cutting prices below cost till they got rid of competition and forced you to the wall!”
Purdy snatched his thin hands from his pockets, pulled up his trousers, thrust his hands back into his pockets, tilted in the heavy oak chair, and tried to look amused, as he struggled:
“Yes, they’re bad competition. But I guess you don’t realize the Pulling Power that Personality has in a neighborhood business.”
The great Babbitt smiled. “That’s so. Just as you feel, old man. We thought we’d give you first chance. All right then—”
“Now look here!” Purdy wailed. “I know f’r a fact that a piece of property ’bout same size, right near, sold for less ’n eighty-five hundred, ’twa’n’t two years ago, and here you fellows are asking me twenty-four thousand dollars! Why, I’d have to mortgage— I wouldn’t mind so much paying twelve thousand but— Why good God, Mr. Babbitt, you’re asking more ’n twice its value! And threatening to ruin me if I don’t take it!”