“There are, however, some houses where, if you at all understand your business, real bargains are at times to be had.”
The business woman is not often to be seen at auctions either, and if ever she does go, she makes sure beforehand that the sale is to be conducted on strictly honourable principles, and presided over by an auctioneer who is above suspicion. She is well aware that there are many unscrupulous individuals who, under cover of an auctioneer’s licence, lend themselves to transactions the reverse of honest.
For example, in company with a band of “followers,” as they are called—back-street brokers and “general dealers” of shady character—auctioneers of this sort take a dwelling-house, and cram it with worthless furniture. Then, after a month or two, the whole is seized under a fictitious “bill of sale,” to give the affair an appearance of genuineness, and the trashy goods are disposed of by auction to the unsuspicious public, the rogues dividing the spoil.
Another plan is to get possession of a shop in a frequented thoroughfare, and, day after day, beguile innocent folk to enter the premises, and then wheedle and bully them into bidding for and buying a lot of rubbish at four or five times more than its actual worth. It is quite a mistake to suppose that goods disposed of “under the hammer,” as it is termed, must necessarily sell for less than their real worth.
These mock auctions are swindles pure and simple, and what the initiated call “rigged sales” are not much better. These take place at auction rooms of more or less legitimate position, are usually held in the evening, and consist chiefly of articles vamped up or made expressly for the purpose. No one should go to them who wants to get value for her money.
In all dealings with tradespeople, a good business woman will do her best to pay cash. As she does this, she always goes to ready-money shops. Shops that give credit must charge higher prices, for they must have interest for the money out of which they lie; and, besides, they must add to the price of their articles to cover the risk that some of their customers will not pay. Those who do pay, pay not only for the credit they get themselves, but for the failure of others.
Now and again, however, to postpone paying one’s debts has an advantage, as was the case with a merchant whom Southey, the poet, once met at Lisbon. “I never pay a porter,” said this merchant, “for bringing a burden till the next day; for while the fellow feels his back ache with the weight he charges high; but when he comes the next day, the feeling is gone, and he asks only half the money.” But it is not often that one has the chance of getting a reduction in this way.
The cash buyer has many advantages, not the least being an easy mind and a knowledge at all times of what she is worth. Let every girl, then, keep in mind for the rest of her days the remark of the American writer, who said, “I have discovered the philosopher’s stone. It consists of four short words of homely English—‘Pay as you go.’” The easiness of credit has been the ruin of many people, by inducing them to buy what they could not hope, unless by a miracle, ever to pay for.
So much for the business woman in her dealings in a private capacity with business people. In a business capacity, however, one must sometimes both give and receive credit. But, it cannot be said with too strong an emphasis, the less of it the better.