“Business is done in queer ways,” said a man who was sitting near me. “Tobacco men give away guns in order to sell their tobacco; coffee is sold by giving plated ware, baking powder by glassware, boots and shoes by giving dolls and sleds, ready-made clothing by a prize of a Waterbury watch, and soap by giving jewelry. Nowadays a dealer don't ask you about the quality of your goods, but about the scheme you've got to sell them. It's a demoralizing way of doing business, and ruining trade.”
“That's so! That's so!” was echoed from all sides.
CHAPTER XII.
Stepping into a hardware store early the next morning, after introducing myself I was handed a letter sent to me in the care of the firm. I was very glad to receive it, and accepted the pleasantly given invitation to sit down and read it.
No man should greet a letter with more welcome than a traveling salesman. It is a tie that connects him with home, he who is so wholly disconnected. He is always wondering what his house may think of this sale, or that price, or this failure to sell, and be he never so sure that he has done well, still the assurance from home that they recognize his success makes him happier.
Houses differ much in their manner of writing to their traveling men. A friend of mine who lately made a change told me his principal reason for leaving the old house was the letters they wrote him. “I never cut a price in the world, unless I had to do it to meet a competitor; but if I did it, no matter for what cause, I was sure to be reminded that I had not been sent out to 'cut,' but to make money. Yet when I came home and explained why I did it, I was told I had done the right thing. But they nagged me the next trip just the same, and I grew tired of it.”
I did not find any such letter as that. It was a hearty commendation of my work and braced me up for the future. “We miss you in the stock,” the letter read; “but we can put up with all that while you do so well on the road.”
I spoke of this to a traveling man. “Well,” said he, “I scarcely ever hear from my house from one end of the trip to the other. Our goods don't vary in price very much, and I'm not much of a hand at writing letters. I send in my orders when I've any to send, and when I've none I save postage. But I know men who have a printed form, and they have to fill one out and send home every night, orders or no orders. That's too much like being a sleeping-car conductor for me.”