"Now, what is the next thing?" This time a porter is summoned. He comes forward as if he expected rebuke. "Oh! I have got such a complaint reported against you. You know that will never do. You must not let that occur again."
'Thus, with incredible dispatch, matter after matter is settled, and all who leave that office go to their work as if some one had oiled all their joints.
'At another time, you find the master passing through the warehouse. Here, his quick glance descries a man who is moving drowsily, and he says a sharp word that makes him, in a moment, nimble. There, he sees another blundering at his work. He had no idea that the master's eye was upon him, till he finds himself suddenly supplanted at the job. In a trice, it is done; and his master leaves him to digest the stimulant. Now, a man comes up to tell him of some plan he has in his mind, for improving something in his own department of the business. "Yes, thank you, that's a good idea;" and putting half-a-crown into his hand, he passes on. In another place he finds a man idling. You can soon see, that of all spectacles this is the one least to his mind. "If you waste five minutes, that is not much; but probably if you waste five minutes yourself, you lead some one else to waste five minutes, and that makes ten. If a third follow your example, that makes a quarter of an hour. Now, there are about a hundred and eighty of us here; and if every one wasted five minutes in a day, what would it come to? Let me see. Why, it would be fifteen hours; and fifteen hours a day would be ninety hours—about eight days, working-time, in a week; and in a year, would be four hundred days. Do you think we could ever stand waste like that?" The poor loiterer is utterly confounded. He had no idea of eating up fifteen hours, much less four hundred days, of his good employer's time; and he never saw before how fast five minutes could be multiplied.'
Mr Budgett was the son of a worthy couple, not exactly in poor, but in rather difficult circumstances. He had little school education; but his mother gave him a good religious training. From his earliest intelligent years, he loved traffic. His first transaction was getting a penny for a horse-shoe which he had found. Discovering that for a half-penny he got six marbles, but for a penny fourteen, he bought pennyworths and sold them in half-pennyworths to his companions, thus realising a profit. Meeting an old woman with a basket of cucumbers, he bought them, and by selling them again, realised ninepence. Truly in his case the boy was father to the man. But, what was notable in him, he would give away his accumulated profits all at once, in the purchase of a hymn-book, or for the relief of some poor person. Even then, it was not for sordid or selfish ends that he trafficked. In these early years, his singular tact also came out. 'I remember,' he said, 'about 1806 or 1807, a young man called on my mother, from Mr D—— of Shepton, to solicit orders in the grocery trade. His introduction and mode of treating my mother were narrowly watched by me, particularly when she asked the price of several articles. On going in to my father, she remarked, there would be no advantage in dealing with Mr D——, as she could not see that his prices were any lower than those she was in the habit of giving. I slipped aside, and began to think: "Why, that young man might have got my mother's trade, if he had known how; if, instead of mentioning so many articles, he had just offered one or two at a lower price than we have been in the habit of giving, she would have been induced to try those articles; and thus he would have been introduced, most likely, to her whole trade: beside, his manner was rather loose, and not of the most modest and attractive kind." I believe the practical lesson then learned has, since that, been worth to me thousands of pounds—namely, Self-interest is the mainspring of human actions: you have only to lay before persons, in a strong light, that what you propose is to their own interest, and you will generally accomplish your purpose.' There are certainly few boys of twelve years who would have caught up such an idea as this from so common-place a circumstance.
By the time he was fourteen, he had realised thirty pounds by private barter. He gave the money to help his parents. When put as apprentice to an elder brother, a grocer in Kingswood Hill, it might have been expected that he would speedily distinguish himself; and so he might have done as far as intellect was concerned; but, unluckily, his strength was at first inadequate for his duties, and his brother actually sent him away as hopeless. With great difficulty, he made his way into another trader's employment, and there he gave entire satisfaction. His brother, then, reclaimed him, and though offered a higher salary where he was, he returned to serve out his time. Long before that period had arrived, he was beginning to soar above retail business. 'The markets were well watched, every advantage of time or change turned to account, and his singular power of cheap buying exerted with all vigour. The trade steadily grew; every now and then those in their own line were surprised at the sales they were able to make, and the neighbourhood resounded with the news of the great bargains to be had at Budgett's. As custom increased, so did envy and accusation. Many scrupled not to declare, that they sold cheaper than they bought, and therefore must soon come to an end; yet they went on, year by year, in steady and rapid increase.... He already seemed to descry in the distance the possibility of a great wholesale establishment; but this must be reached by little and little. He would not attempt what he could not accomplish. Any sudden bound, therefore, by which he was at once to pass the gulf now separating him from his object, was not to be thought of. A little at a time; secure what you have, work it well, make it fruitful, and then push on a little farther; but never stretch out to anything new till all the old is perfectly cultivated.'
The brother, who was fifteen years his senior, and a man of ordinary character, was borne on by the towering genius of Samuel the apprentice. 'Among the customers of the shop were numbers of good women, who came from villages at a few miles' distance, mounted on donkeys. As the flow of purchasers was great, a crowd of these patient steeds would often be for a long time about the door, while their respective mistresses were obtaining goods. In this concourse from a distance, the quick eye of Samuel discovered the germ of an extended trade. Why should he not go into their neighbourhood regularly, and obtain their orders; so securing their custom always, and affording them accommodation, while he obtained new chances of extension? His brother was much more inclined to pursue the regular course than to branch into anything new; and the caution of the one probably acted as a useful counterbalance to the energy of the other. But Samuel was not to be held within the shop-walls: he had his plans for erecting a great business, and no power could restrain him. He soon set forth to the villages of Doynton and Pucklechurch, and arranged to meet the good folks at fixed times, in one house or another convenient for them, and there to receive their orders. He made himself their friend: he was hearty, familiar, and in earnest; he noticed their children; he knew their ways; and he rapidly gained their favour, and effected considerable sales.'
'This point gained, he began to talk of supplying the smaller shops. "Why should not we supply them as well as other people?" His brother shrank from anything that seemed to approach the wholesale. He feared that they would get beyond their means, and wished to pursue only the old course. Samuel could wait, but he could not surrender. Supply the smaller shops he would, and by degrees he managed to accomplish it. Very gradually, the range of this quasi-wholesale trade extended. Firmly keeping to his purpose of working all he had got, and going on little by little, he made no abrupt enterprise—no great dash; but on, on he plodded in the humblest way, caring nothing for show, but careful that every foot of ground under him was solid. He gradually began to make a modest sort of commercial journey; and among tradesmen to whom he would not venture to offer the higher articles of grocery, raised a considerable trade in such descriptions of goods as he might supply without seeming to push into too important a sphere.'
Having made a lucky purchase of butter, Samuel went amongst traders of his own kind for orders, and at first met with little but contempt. He persevered, nevertheless, and in a little time made his way. By little and little his house, of which he became a partner, acquired a footing, and began to be talked of as a kind of prodigy for a village. The leading principle followed, was to do business entirely by ready-money, in buying as in selling. A wonder may be felt how Mr Budgett contrived, with no advantage of capital at starting, to act upon this rule. The plan is simple, and may be easily followed. Let the transactions be in a proper proportion to the means. It looks a slow plan; but, in reality, by securing an exemption from pecuniary embarrassment, it allows a business, other circumstances being equal, to go on faster than might otherwise be the case. Mr Budgett could accept small profits on his ready-money transactions, and by their frequency, outstrip heavier-pursed but also heavier-minded men.
The leading maxims of Samuel Budgett in business were—Tact, Push, and Principle. In the two former, he was a great genius, and much he no doubt was indebted to them. Yet we are inclined to think that Principle had the chief hand in his success. He was entirely a just man. He would rebuke a young salesman more severely for a slight inequality in his weighing-scales against the public, than for a neglect of his duty. It was a custom of grocers to mix up pepper with an article called P.D. Mr Budgett long kept a cask of P.D.; but at length, reflecting seriously on it one evening, he went to the shop, re-opened it, took out the hypocritical cask to a neighbouring quarry, and there staved it, scattering the P.D. amongst the clods, and slags, and stones; after which he returned with a light heart to bed. There was also a benevolence at the bottom of all Mr Budgett's proceedings as a man of business. It appeared strongly in his relations to his subalterns and working-people. Though a strict disciplinarian, and not to be imposed upon in anything, he was so humane and liberal towards all around him, that they served him as much from love as duty. He has discharged men for misconduct or disloyalty, and afterwards pensioned their families till they got other employment. His liberality in supporting charitable institutions, and relieving private cases of distress, knew hardly any bounds; but, at a fair computation, it has been estimated at about L.2000 a year.
Observing one of his men looking for some time very melancholy, he called him up, and inquired into the cause. 'The sickness of his wife had entangled him in debt; he could not eat, he could not sleep; his life was a misery to him, and he had exclaimed with a pathos that sunk deep into my dear relative's tender heart: "Master, I am in debt; every time I go near the river, something bids me fling myself into it, telling me there's water enough to rid me of all my troubles; and that if I don't, I shall be sent into the prison there for debt!"