“Don't we?”
“No, sir; these goods were to be paid for when sold.”
“But the invoice is plainly marked sixty days; why didn't you report such an agreement when you received the invoice?”
“I don't care for the invoice. Don't I get any amount of invoices where all of the discount does not show? When I pay them I deduct the extra, and that is the end of it.”
I concluded a little plain talk would neither do us or him any harm; he was probably in a state of mind that would prevent him buying of us very soon again. I said: “I am satisfied that you have been long enough in business to know that staple goods, such as you had from us, are never sold on any such terms as you state you bought these at. I made inquiries about you of your neighbors, and every one said they had misunderstandings with you, and are not on good terms with you, and if I could see your correspondence I am pretty sure I would find we are not the only house out of town that you have had just such disputes with. I simply say to you, and for your own good, Mr. Atkinson, that you are making a mistake. My orders from my house were not to sell you, and while I know you can get along without us, you can't afford to keep driving houses away from you without hurting yourself. I'm obliged to you for paying me; that is all I came in here for.”
He told me that I and my house could go to the devil, and in that pleasant frame of mind we parted. I suppose I cut down the bridge between him and us, but I venture to say other houses had the benefit of my frankness.
I spoke of this to an old traveling man whom I met at the hotel. “Yes,” said he, “there's too much coddling among us all. We smooth over this, and give in on that, and the result is we make it all the easier for the fellow to be small the next time. I'm selling axes, and, of course, I have to warrant them. Do you warrant guns?”
“Not to speak of.”
“Then you ought to thank your stars. Warranting is the most infernal device ever brought out to make men mean and dishonest. I put it down to the dealer, when I sell him, in the plainest way I know how, that we warrant an ax only against being soft or breaking from a plain flaw. When I come around in the spring he pulls from under the counter two or three or more rusty axes that he hands to me, with the remark that 'here are some poor ones.' I pick up an ax and find some idiot ground it as thin as a razor, and the edge broke out so that it looks like a saw, I ask him what is the matter with it.'Too hard; brittle as glass.' 'But I didn't warrant against being too hard.' 'But you expect your axes to stand, don't you?' 'This would stand if ground properly.' 'Oh, yes; you fellows always have some loop-hole to get out of your warrant.' This rather staggers me, so I pick up the next one. 'What is the matter with this?' 'Soft.' As I hold the edge to the light I can see a slight bend in the bit. The man who used it had it stick, and in his efforts to loosen it, he had given it such a terrible wrench that the edge had bent a trifle. To a man knowing anything of the proper temper of an ax the fact of that slight bend is in its favor, and the work of grinding it out would have been much less than it was to remove the helve. But I pass that, as there is no use to argue that a slight twist does not show soft temper, and I pick up the third one. It has a corner broken off; the break is still bright, but I am calmly told there was a bad flaw there. I start to explain why I know, from the shape of the break that there was no flaw, but he twits me again with wanting to go back on my warrant, and I stop right there. Now, this is the history of nine out of ten transactions. The retailer takes back everything a customer brings back for fear of losing that customer's trade. The jobber takes back from the retailer, knowing it is unjust, but he is afraid that any hesitancy on his part will damage his trade. And the poor devil of a manufacturer takes it off the jobber's hands and cannot help himself. There is a deuced lot of cowardice in business nowadays. It goes back through the dealers till it reaches the consumer, and it encourages him to make any kind of claim he sees fit to cover his negligence, ignorance, or maliciousness.”
Sitting in the cars that evening, I overheard a traveling man say: “I find it a little bit harder each week to leave home. I have a little girl of three, and I see so little of her it makes me discontented. Her mother knows just what time I ought to come up the street, and she and the baby are watching for me at that hour every Saturday evening. When they see me the little one comes running to meet me. Her excitement and her running just take her breath away, so that when she gets to me she cannot speak a word. But she can squeeze me and kiss me. How I do hang on to her all the time I'm at home! I go to bed two nights in the week like a man should. I wake up to find those little arms around me! And on Monday morning I have to pull myself away. I tell you it's almighty hard.”