A Man of Samples. Something about the men he met "On the Road" Part 22

I spread out my revolvers before four concerns and enlarged upon their remarkable qualities and low prices. "Bulldogs" had stiffened in price at the factories to $2.25, less 10 per cent., and our stock was large and bought at low prices. I used this as a bait wherever I could, but every other man had been throwing out offers of the same kind, and mine were not so greedily taken as I would like to have had them.

"No use of your offering baits," said one party "there's no life in the gun business any more. Here's Lafoucheaux guns at $7, Flobert rifles at $2, Smith & Wesson revolvers at $8, and the deuce knows where it will stop. Things must be mighty dubious when S. & W. have to cut their prices. Here's Reachum's last billet doux on rifles, quoting them at about 5 per cent, above cost, and yet you expect me to give you an order. No, it's no use; I must wait till somebody wants to buy something that I have."

"Do you say that about all your lines?"

"Well, it's mighty near it in everything. Here's an order from my man on the Central for a quarter dozen steel squares at 75 and 10 off; cost me that a month ago. Here's strap hinges at 65 and 5 off; I paid that for them. There's a milk-strainer, sold at $1.25 per dozen, cost me $1.20; carpet tacks sold at $1.50 gross, cost me $1.44. All these things in one bill. I tell you I am getting rich fast."

"I am going in to-night," I said, "and would be glad to carry in a little order for you. I'll get it out myself and see that nice goods are sent you."

"No, I don't want anything."

I heard almost a similar complaint from the next one I saw, but I managed to secure two orders for my day's work, and then I was done. I never paid a hotel bill so gladly or bought a railroad ticket with happier feelings. There was a pleasure in getting my baggage checked home, and no car ever seemed to me quite so comfortable and inviting as the one I rode home in.

When I walked into the store it was difficult to believe that I had been out of it more than twenty-four hours. The bill of goods on the floor looked exactly like the one I saw there the day I started away.

The porter and drayman seemed to be talking about the same accident or "wake" that they were engaged in when I last saw them together, and the white head of the "old man" was bent over his books as if it had never moved. I couldn't help saying to myself, "How glad they ought to be that they have only to do the work that comes to them, instead of feeling the responsibility of creating new business."

They met me as if I had been off on a lark, and ought to feel grateful to them for doing my work while I was away. I wondered if I was ever a.s.s enough to meet our old travelers in any such way. I guess I was.

"Well, old boy, had a good time?"

This from stock clerk, from salesman, from the packer, and from the book-keeper.

Good time! Great Caesar!

Good time! With a constant dread about you that you are going to fail!

Pus.h.i.+ng yourself boldly into men's offices a dozen times a day, yet always nervously dreading the reception they may give you. Catching late trains and early trains; missing meals or sitting down to tables where things are so uninviting you cannot eat. And all the time, day and night, wondering if your employers are satisfied with your sales and if they recognize the necessity of your cutting prices. A good time! If there is any business in the world that is so little of a "good time" I would like to know what it is. The firm met me very pleasantly. They joked me a little about my new beard and the extra fat they declared they saw on me, and then the welcomings were over.

I took my place at my old desk with a firm resolution to let other men do the traveling; I would stick to the store.

"Come home to supper with me," said the head of the house; "I'd like to talk over your trip with you, and we can do it better at home this evening."

This was an honor I had not had before. The other boys looked at me with envy.

"How have things gone? Has business been good?" I asked my old a.s.sistant in the stock.

"Things have gone so-so; trade has been only middling. But you did first rate, old fellow. I heard the old man say you were a success."

"Did he say that?"

"Yes, and lots more. You made a strike."

This was pleasant news.

After our tea that evening the head of the house began to question me about my trip, and I saw that a detailed story of it was what he wanted. So I began with the first town that I had stopped at, and gave him a history of the trip. He seemed to enjoy it, and to pick up a good many items from it.

"Yes," he said, "business is becoming less profitable every year. The idiots who are going to get rich by selling flour at 25 cents a barrel less than cost, simply by doing a h--l of a business, are multiplying.

Reachum can probably sell goods close and make money, as he has no traveling men; his princ.i.p.al expense is his postal cards. Simmons & Hibbard can sell our goods low because it is only one department of a large business with them, and its proportion of expenses is not great.

We will be compelled to do either less or more; either do a smaller business in guns and ammunition and at less expense, or to put in other goods and drum a larger variety of trade. We have pretty much decided to do the latter. What do you think of it?"

I laughingly suggested that in Cleveland and Indianapolis some of the houses were adding a silver mine to their stock, and that we ought to have one too.

"And then compel the traveling-men to buy or not give them orders?

That would be a good scheme. But I had not thought of that. Our plan is to lay in a line of goods that will work in well with general trade and sell all the year round."

I said I thought it was a capital idea.

"Will you give up the stock and go on the road regularly?"

What? Go on the road regularly? Not a bit of it. Keep on, month after month, year after year, hammering after orders? No, oh, no!

"Then you don't like it?"

No, I did not. There was altogether too much anxiety about it for me.

There were men so const.i.tuted that they did not feel worried whether they got an order or not. They were the proper men to travel. But I was nervous and anxious, and worried when I had no order for fear I was not going to get one; and then worried after I had one, fearing I would not get any more. No, I was not made of the right kind of stuff for a traveling man.

"If I did not see that you are so thoroughly in earnest I would say you are sarcastic. You evidently believe what you say, but you do not seem to understand that the very reason why you will make a successful salesman is this nervous dread of failure. When you meet a man who doesn't care a copper cent whether trade is good or not you have met a second-rate man. Trade can only be secured by persistent and hard work. A man of your disposition will be pulling wires and ingratiating himself into the good will of his customers, while your contented man is playing billiards or making acquaintance of a sport of the town.

Taking into consideration the times and the condition of business, your trip has been a remarkably successful one, but the second one will be a better one for the house, and a pleasanter one for you. You will then call on acquaintances, not on strangers, and you will find your task easier and your trade better. Think it over. You will be more valuable to us on the road and it will pay you better."

But I swore I would not consider it. Afterwards I fancied I might think of it. Then I did consider it, and yes, here I am. I represent the firm of Blank & Blank, Guns and Ammunition. If you are in need of anything in my line I would be glad to figure with you, for I am

A MAN OF SAMPLES.

HIS LAST TRIP.

[ILl.u.s.tRATION]

Morgan had been on the road for one house about 20 years. This is a long period of travel. In less time than that most men work up or work down. No man can continue on a dead level as a salesman during that time, even if his habits are good. If he has ability he is sure, with rare exception, to work himself off the road. If he is mediocre no one house can afford to carry him for twenty years. Morgan was the rare exception just mentioned. He was an excellent salesman, and his ability and success but served to weld him the closer to his work. The house had made him a partner long since, but the business he controlled was so large and so profitable, that they all knew, and he best, that to withdraw him and experiment with a new man would be but playing with fire over a magazine of powder. So he went on his way year after year, making no plans for the future that would change his work or his life.

But his family, consisting of his wife and their one daughter, Mary, a romping girl of twelve, was not of his disposition, These two could not see husband and father start off without a protest. The wife had always on her heart a burden of anxiety about him; of dangers on railroads, of his possible robbery and murder; of the discomforts of hotels, and the fear of his falling sick among strangers. She was naturally a timid woman, and the responsibility of the house weighed upon her. The whole burden of Mary's growth in body and mind, her training, her companions, and her pleasures were matters the mother would gladly have shared with the father, but she was generally compelled to decide them alone.

The father's continued absence was a constant pain and grievance to Mary. There was never a week but that she felt deprived of some special outing because he was not at home to go with her. Sat.u.r.day night and Sunday, if he was where he could run home, were so many solid hours of happiness to them all, but to Mary they were full of perfect bliss.

Morgan was known to all his friends as a man who never worried. If a train was late he sat down and waited; if a customer failed he always signed a compromise; if he didn't get the best room in the hotel, he took what he could get; and he lost no sleep in picturing how his compet.i.tors might get ahead of him. He always left home with the a.s.surance that everything would go on all right until he returned, and when he went away he thought of the two he loved as being happy and well.

But as he started on this trip, he could not shake off a slight feeling of anxiety that had possessed him all the night, and had grown since he awoke. Their talk the previous day had been about the entrance Of diphtheria into the neighborhood, and of the fatal case but two blocks away from their door. Mary had complained of a slightly sore throat, but on Monday morning declared it was entirely well again, kissing him good-by with more spirit than usual, as if trying to convince him of the truth of her words, and send him away a.s.sured and happy.

When he was seated in the cars the shadows came over his spirits again and began to torture him with doubts and possibilities. It might be, he thought, that her sprightliness of the morning was due to fever, rather than to health. He wished he had looked into her throat, and he regretted that he had not cautioned his wife about her. He nursed these fears until he felt himself becoming wild with apprehension, and then he resolutely put the thoughts aside, declared he was foolish and would have no more of it, and devoted himself to a companion and to his papers.

Men cannot always govern their minds. These are kingdoms that frequently rebel against all government. Several times during the day Morgan caught himself going back to his morning thoughts and he resolutely changed the current. But at night, try as he would, he could not conquer them. Even his dreams took up the forebodings of the day, exaggerated and intensified them, and tortured him. Next morning found him out of sorts, nervous, and miserable. He had a long drive to take in the country, but he shrank from it as if he saw danger in his track. All his intuitions seemed to be crying to him to go home, but what he thought was his common sense kept insisting that he should go on with his business, and not cross the bridge of trouble until he came to it.

The day was one of the loveliest October days he had ever seen. His drive was through twenty miles of the best corn land of Illinois. The black road was as dry as a board, and as level as only a prairie can be. The first effect of the beautiful day and pure air was invigorating. He enjoyed the drive through the street into the country road. Then the broad fields, the pleasant farm houses, the herds of horses and cattle, the long Osage hedges, the perpetual but always surprised rabbit at the road side, all these attracted and entertained him, and his ride was successful in driving away his blues. His customer seemed especially glad to see him; took him to his house to dinner; talked with him of important personal matters, and gave him a large order for goods. He turned back to the railroad feeling as happy as he had ever done; took out his order-book and figured up the amount of the bill and the profit, as was his custom, and then began to sing.

Suddenly there came across him a wave of anxious worry, and all his thoughts flew back to the daughter's sore throat, and the funeral he saw last Sunday. He could not drive these away. They clung to him; they whispered to him; they unfolded themselves like a panorama, and on the canvas he saw Mary sick, then worse, and then dead! It was the longest twenty-mile ride that he had ever taken, and his old friend, the landlord, concluded from his face that Morgan had met with bad luck in sales that day.