Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories Part 12

HIS STOCK IN TRADE

"The science of salesmans.h.i.+p is quite as exact as the science of astronomy," said Mr. Gross, casting his eyes down the table to see that he had the attention of the other boarders, "and much more intricate. The successful salesman is as much an artist in his line as the man who paints pictures or writes books."

"Oh, there's nothing so artistic as writing books," protested Miss Harris, the manicurist. "Nothing except acting, perhaps. Actors are artistic, too. But salesmen! I meet lots in my business, and I'm not strong for them."

Mr. Gross smiled at her indulgently; it was an expression that became him well, and he had rehea.r.s.ed it often.

"The power to sell goods is a talent, my dear Miss Harris, just like the power to invent machinery or to rule a city, or--or--to keep a set of books. Don't you agree with me, Mrs. Green?"

Mrs. Green, the landlady, a brown, gray woman in black, smiled frigidly. "You're _so_ original, Mr. Gross," said she, "it's a pleasure to hear you, I'm sure."

Gross was an impressive talker, due to the fact that he plagiarized office plat.i.tudes; he ran on pompously, dropping trade mottoes and shop-worn bits of philosophy until young Mitch.e.l.l, unable longer to endure the light of admiration he saw in Miss Harris's eyes, rolled up his napkin to the size of a croquette and interrupted by noisily shoving back his chair and muttering under his breath:

"That stuff comes on printed cards. They give it away."

Mrs. Green called to him, "It's bread pudding, Mr. Mitch.e.l.l, and very nice."

"Thanks! My gout is bad again," he said, at which some of the more frivolous-minded boarders snickered.

"Mitch.e.l.l is a bright boy--in many ways," Gross remarked, a moment later, "but he's too fresh. I don't think he'll last long at the office."

Instead of climbing to his hall kennel on the fourth floor rear, Louis Mitch.e.l.l went out upon the rusty little porch of the boarding-house and sat down on the topmost step, reflecting gloomily that a clerk has small chance against a head bookkeeper.

Life at Mrs. Green's pension--she called it that, rates six dollars up, terms six dollars down--had not been the same for the youthful hermit of the hall bedroom since Gross had met him and Miss Harris in the park a few Sundays before and, falling under the witchery of the manicurist's violet eyes, had changed his residence to coincide with theirs. Gross now occupied one of the front rooms, and a corresponding place in the esteem of those less fortunate boarders to whom the mere contemplation of ten dollars a week was an extravagance. Mitch.e.l.l had long adored the blonde manicurist, but once the same roof sheltered her and the magnificent head bookkeeper, he saw his dream of love and two furnished rooms with kitchenette go glimmering.

Time was when Miss Harris had been content with Sundays in the park, vaudeville--first balcony--on Wednesdays, and a moving picture now and then. These lavish attentions, coupled with an occasional a.s.sault upon some delicatessen establishment, had satisfied her cravings for the higher life. Now that Gross had appeared and sown discord with his prodigality she no longer cared for animals and band concerts, she had acquired the orchestra-seat habit, had learned to dance, and, above all, she now possessed a subtle refinement in regard to victuals. She criticized Marlowe's acting, and complained that cold food gave her indigestion. No longer did she sit the summer evenings out with Mitch.e.l.l, holding his hand in her lap and absent-mindedly buffing his nails, warning him in sweet familiarity that his cuticle was "growing down." In consequence of her defection, fierce resentment smoldered in the young man's breast. He was jealous; he longed to out-squander the extravagant Mr. Gross; he l.u.s.ted to spend money in unstinted quant.i.ties, five dollars an evening if or when necessary.

But there seemed little hope of his ever attaining such a purse-proud position, for while he loomed fairly large in the boarding-house atmosphere of Ohio Street--or had so loomed until the advent of the reckless bookkeeper--he was so small a part of the office force of Comer & Mathison, jobbers of railway supplies, as to resemble nothing multiplied by itself. He received twelve dollars a week, to be sure, for making telephone quotations and extending invoices between times; but when, as the evening shadows of pay-day descended and he drew his envelope, the procedure reminded him vaguely of blackmail, for any office-boy who did not stutter could have held his job.

When at seven forty-five Miss Harris appeared upon the porch with her hat and gloves and two-dollar-ticket air, and tripped gaily away in company with Mr. Gross, young Mitch.e.l.l realized bitterly that the cost of living had increased and that it was up to him to raise his salary or lose his lady.

He recalled Gross's words at supper-time, and wondered if there really could be a science to business; if there could be anything to success except hard work. Mr. Comer, in his weekly talks to the office force, had repeatedly said so--whence the origin of the bookkeeper's warmed-over wisdom--but Mitch.e.l.l's duties were so simple and so constricted as to allow no opening for science, or so, at least, it seemed to him. How could he be scientific, how could he find play for genius when he sat at the end of a telephone wire and answered routine questions from a card? Every day the General Railway Sales Manager gave him a price-list of the commodities which C. & M. handled, and when an inquiry came over the 'phone all he was required, all he was permitted, to do was to read the figures and to quote time of delivery. If this resulted in an order the Sales Manager took the credit. An open quotation, on the other hand, made Mitch.e.l.l the subject of brusque criticism for offering a target to compet.i.tors, and when he lost an order he was the goat, not the General Railway Sales Manager.

No one around the office was too lowly to exact homage from the quotation clerk, and no one was tongue-tied in the matter of criticism, hence his position was neither one of dignity nor one that afforded scope for talent in the money-making line. And yet if salesmans.h.i.+p really were a science, Mitch.e.l.l reasoned, there must be some way in which even a switchboard operator could profit by acquiring it. What if he were buckled to the end of a wire? Human nature is the same, face to face or voice to voice; surely then, if he set his mind to the task, he could make himself more than a mere string of words over a telephone. Heretofore he had been working wholly with his fingers, his ear-drums, and his vocal cords; he determined henceforth to exercise his intelligence, if he had any. It was indeed high time, for Miss Harris was undoubtedly slipping away, lured by luxuries no clerk could afford, and, moreover, he, Mitch.e.l.l, was growing old; in a scant two years he would be able to vote. He began forthwith to a.n.a.lyze the situation.

There wasn't much to it. His telephone calls came almost wholly from the purchasing departments of the various railroads. Daily requisitions were filled by the stenographers in those railway offices, young ladies who through their long experience were allowed to attend to the more unimportant purchases. It was in quoting prices on these "pick-ups" that Mitch.e.l.l h.e.l.loed for eight hours a day.

Of course no large orders ever came over his wire, but this small business carried an unusual profit for supply houses like Comer & Mathison, and in consequence it was highly prized.

After a period of intense and painful thought the young man realized, for the first time, that it was not the telephone itself which asked for price and time of delivery, but a weak, imaginative human being, like himself, at the other end of the wire. He reasoned further that if he could convince that person that the voice from Conner & Mathison likewise issued from a human throat, then it might be possible to get away, in a measure at least, from the mechanical part of the business and establish altogether new relations. If there were really a science to salesmans.h.i.+p, it would work at long distance as well as at collar-and-elbow holds, and Mitch.e.l.l's first task, therefore, should be to project his own personality into the railroad offices. He went to bed still trying to figure the matter out.

His opportunity to test his new-born theory came on the following morning when an irritable female voice over at the Santa Fe asked the price on twenty kegs of rivets.

"Good morning, Santa Fe-male," he answered, cheerily.

There was a moment of amazed silence, then the young lady snapped: "'Good morning'? What is this, the Weather Bureau? I want Comer & Mathison."

"Gee! Can't a fellow display a little courtesy in business?" Mitch.e.l.l inquired. "I'd rather be nice to you than not."

"All right, Mr. Comer," the voice replied, sarcastically. "Make a nice price on those rivets--and cut out the kidding."

"Listen; my name's not Comer; it's Mitch.e.l.l. I'm not kidding, either.

I want you to ask for me whenever you call up. Every little bit helps, you know."

"Oh, I see. You want the carriage man to call your number. All right, Mitch. If you're out at lunch with Mr. Carnegie the next time I want a dozen number ten sheets I'll have you paged at the Union League Club."

If the speaker liked this kind of blank verse, she had called up the right supply house, for Mitch.e.l.l came back with:

"Say, if I ever get _your_ number, I'll do the calling, Miss Santa Fe."

"_W-what_?" came the startled reply.

"I mean what I say. I'd love to call--"

"Is that so? Well, I do all the calling for our, family, and I'm going to call you right now. What's the price of those rivets?"

"Two sixty-five."

"Too high! Good-by."

"Wait a minute." Mitch.e.l.l checked the lady before she could "plug out"

on him. "Now that you've got those rivets out of your system, may I get personal for an instant?"

"Just about an instant."

"I could listen to _you_ all day."

"Oops, Horace; he loves me!" mocked the lady's voice.

"See here, I'm a regular person--with references. I've been talking to you every day for six months, so I feel that we're acquainted. Some pleasant evening, when your crew of hammock gladiators palls on you, let me come around and show you the difference."

"What difference?"

"I'll show you what a real porch-climber is like."

"Indeed! I'll think it over."

Ten minutes later Miss Santa Fe called up again.

"h.e.l.lo! I want Mitch.e.l.l, the junior partner."

"This is Mitch.e.l.l."

"Did you say those rivets were two-fifty?"

"Should they be?"