Tales of the Road Part 19

"'You know, I don't care so much aboud dose "vorldly hopes" and dot "sons.h.i.+ne," but vat dit strike me vas vere you saidt: "It's better fair to bear de ilts ve half don vly to odders dot we know not of."

Dot means, Vat's de use of chanching 'ouses.'"

"You can handle some men like that," said a hat man friend who sat with us, but I struck one old bluffer out in South Dakota once that wouldn't stand for any smoothing over. He was the most disagreeable white man to do business with I ever saw. He was all right to talk fis.h.i.+ng and politics with, and was a good entertainer. He always treated me decently in that way but when it got down to business he was the meanest son of a gun on earth. A fis.h.i.+ng trip for half an hour or the political situation during luncheon is a pretty good thing to talk over, but when it comes to interfering with business, I think it is about time to cut it out.

"My house had been selling this man for several years. He handled a whole lot of goods but it worried the life out of me to get his bill.

"Last time I did business with him he had monkeyed with me all day long, and I had struck him as many as four times to go over to my sample room. If he had made a positive engagement and said that he would see me at twelve o'clock that night, it would have been all right; but he would turn away with a grunt the subject of going to look at samples, not even giving me the satisfaction of saying he didn't want anything at all.

"I felt that I'd spent time enough in the town so, after supper, I brought over a bunch of soft hats under my arm, and about nine o'clock he looked at them, picked out a few numbers, and said he had to go to lodge. I boned him about straw hats--I was on my spring trip then.

"'Look at them to-morrow,' he grunted.

"I was beginning to get tired of this sort of thing so next morning early I went around to see another man in the town. I'd made up my mind I'd rather take less business from some one else and get it more agreeably; but, to my surprise, I sold this other fellow $1,300, the best order I took on that trip. And easy! I believe he was one of the easiest men I ever did business with; and his credit was A1. He had no objections whatever to my doing business with others in the same town, because he wished his goods put up under his own name rather than with our brands on them, so this really made no interference.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "He came in with his before-breakfast grouch."]

"I finished with him in the morning about 11:30. On going over to my other man's store I found that he was still in bed. Pretty soon he came in with his before-breakfast grouch. It was afternoon before I got him over to my sample room. Meantime I had gone to sell another man and sold him a bunch of children's and misses' goods--such stuff as a clothing house has no use for.

"After I'd taken the d.o.g.g.i.ng of the gruff old codger for a couple of hours--he kicked on everything, the brims being a quarter of an inch too wide or too narrow, and the crowns not shaped exactly right--I finally closed the order and handed him his copy. As he put his hand on the door-k.n.o.b to go, he cast his eye over a pile of misses' sailors and growled: 'Well, who bought them?'

"I told him that I'd sold a little handful of goods to a dry goods store, knowing there would be no interference as he didn't carry that line of goods.

"'Well, a man that sells me can't do business with no other man in this town,' he grunted, and with this, slammed the door and left me.

He didn't know that I'd sold his compet.i.tor a $1,300 bill.

"When I was about half through packing up, the old growler's clerk, who was a gentlemanly young fellow, came in and said to me, hesitatingly: 'Old man, I hate to tell you, but the boss told me to come over and say to you not to s.h.i.+p that bill of goods he gave you until he ordered it. He is very unreasonable, you know, and is kicking because you sold some stuff to the dry goods man down the street.'

"'Thank you, Gus,' said I to the clerk. I was mad as fire, but not at him, of course. 'Now, Gus, the old man has sent me a message by you.

I'll let you take one back to him. Now, mind you, you and I are good friends, Gus. Tell him I say he can take his business, including this order, and go with it now and forever clean smack back to--well, you know the rest. Then tell him, Gus, that I've sold not only this dry goods man a bill but also his strongest compet.i.tor over $1,300 worth of goods. Tell him, furthermore, that I personally appreciate all the favors he has done for me in the past, in a personal way; that I have enjoyed visiting with him; that whenever I come back to this town again in the future, I shall come in to see him; that if I can do him a personal favor in any way, at any time, anywhere, I shall be only too glad to do so, but that, absolutely, our business relations.h.i.+p is at an end.'

"'All right,' said Gus. 'I'll repeat to the old man every word you've said. I'm glad you've called him down. It'll do him good.'

"And you bet your life I tore his order up without sending it in to the house and drew a line through his name on my book, and have never solicited his business since."

"You did him just exactly right," said the necktie man. "While I squared myself with my friend Morris, I was once independent with a customer who cancelled an order on me. He came in to meet me at Kansas City. Two more of the boys were also there then. He placed orders with all of us. His name was Stone. The truth is he came in and brought his wife and boy with him just because he wanted to take a little flyer at our expense. We had written him telling him that we'd pay his expenses if he would come in. He went ahead and took a few hours of our time to place his orders. At the time he did so I merely thought him a good liberal buyer but, as I now look back at the way he bought, he slipped down most too easy to stick.

"Sure enough, in three or four weeks the firm wrote me that Stone had cancelled his order, stating that he believed he had enough goods on hand to run him, that season, but that possibly very late he might reinstate the order.

"The fellow was good so I thought it wouldn't do very much harm to try to get him to take the goods. However, I employed very different tactics from those I used with my friend Morris. I wrote him this way:

"'My dear Brother Stone: I have received a letter from the firm stating that you have cancelled the order which you placed with me in Kansas City. You know not how much I thank you for cancelling this order. It gave me a great deal of pleasure to sell you this bill of goods, and now that you have cancelled it, I want you to be sure and make your cancellation stick because then, sooner than I had really expected, I shall have that same old pleasure over again.

"'It isn't always profit that a man should look for in business. What good does it do him to make a whole lot of money unless he can feel good on the inside? The _feel_ is about all there is in life anyway.

"'Now in future, you go right on as you have in the past, buy your goods from the other fellow. He will not charge you a great deal more for them than I would and your loss will not be very great in that regard; but each time that I come around be sure to take a lot of my time and place an order with me, even if you do cancel it.

"'Don't even trouble yourself about returning the fifteen dollars expense money that was given you, because the pleasure I had with you was worth that much to me alone. I shall square this matter myself with the other boys. No, I won't do that because I'm sure that they feel in this matter just as I do.

"'With very kindest regards, and ever at your service, believe me, Brother Stone, "'Truly yours, "'------------'"

"He wired the house to s.h.i.+p the bill and sent the message paid."

"That was what I call a grafter," said one of the boys.

"Yes, you bet your life," said the wall paper man.

"I myself once cured a man of the cancelling habit. You know there are some merchants over the country who are afflicted with this disease.

"I had heard of a druggist out in Pennsylvania who was noted for placing an order one morning and cancelling it that very night. He had done a trick of this kind on me once and I'd made up my mind that I was going to play even with him. I walked him over to my sample room early in the morning. I had my samples all spread out so that I could handle him quickly. There were a lot of new patterns out that season-- flaming reds, greens, cherry colors, blues, ocean greens--all sorts of shades and designs.

"The druggist picked out a cracking good order. He took a copy of it himself in his own book. As we were working the wind turned the sheets of his memo. book and I saw that he had in it a copy of an order in my line to another firm. This he had given only a few days before. Every season this druggist would really buy one big bill of wall paper, but this was his trick: He would look at the line of every man that came along. Sometimes he would place six or eight orders a season. After placing an order he would immediately cancel it. At his leisure he would figure out which order pleased him best and reinstate that one.

"Well, sir, when I finished with him it was close onto luncheon time, but I didn't do anything but go hungry for awhile. I took my notebook, made out his order, as quickly as I could, wired it into the firm (it cost me twelve dollars to do this), and told them to be absolutely sure to put all hands to work on that order and s.h.i.+p it on the four o'clock fast freight that very day. I had to be in town the next day.

Soon after breakfast I went into the druggist's store. I caught him back at his desk. I saw him blot the ink on an envelope he had just addressed. About this time a lady came in to get a prescription filled. As the druggist turned his back I quickly lifted the blotter and, seeing that the letter was addressed to my firm, let it cover the envelope again. I knew this was a cancellation letter.

"After the lady had gone out with her medicine, I asked the druggist to show me some hair brushes which were in the case at the other end of the store from the desk. I made up my mind that it was going to take me longer to buy that hairbrush than it did the old man to buy my bill of wall paper. I was getting his time. But I didn't rub my fingers over many bristles before up backed a dray loaded to the guards with the goods from my firm. The drayman came in and handed the druggist the bill of lading.

"'What's this?' said he.

"'I'm treed,' said the drayman. 'They're as heavy as lead.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I'm treed," said the drayman, "they're as heavy as lead."]

"With this the drayman rolled the cases into the druggist's store.

Well, sir, he was the cheapest looking fellow you ever saw, but he kept the goods, all right, and this cured him of _cancelitis_."

CHAPTER XIII.

CONCERNING CREDIT MEN.

The credit man was the subject of our talk as a crowd of us sat, one Sunday afternoon, in the writing-room of the Palace Hotel at San Francisco. The big green palm in the center of the room cast, from its drooping and fronded branches, shadows upon the red rugs carpeting the stone floor. This was a peaceful scene and wholly unfitting to the subject of our talk.

"I would rather herd sheep in a blizzard," blurted out the clothing man, "than make credits. Yes, I would rather brake on a night way- freight; be a country doctor where the roads are always muddy; a dray horse on a granite-paved street; anything for me before being a credit man! It is the most thankless job a human being can hold. It is like being squeezed up against the dock by a big steams.h.i.+p. If you s.h.i.+p goods and they're not paid for, the house kicks; if you turn down orders sent in, the traveling man raises a howl. None of it for me.

No, sir!"

"I have always been fairly lucky," spoke up the hat man. "I've never been with but two houses in my life and I've really never had any trouble with my credit men. They were both reasonable, broad-minded, quick-witted, diplomatic gentlemen. If a man's credit were doubtful in their minds, they would usually ask me about him, or even wire me, sometimes, if an order were in a rush, to tell them what I thought of the situation. And they would always pay attention to what I said."

"Well, you are one in a hundred," spoke out the clothing man. "You ought to shake hands with yourself. You don't know what a hard time I've had with the various men who've made credits on the goods I have sold.

"The credit man, you know, usually grows up from office boy to cas.h.i.+er, and from cas.h.i.+er to bookkeeper, from bookkeeper to a.s.sistant credit man and then to credit man himself. Most of them have never been away from the place they were born in, and about all they know is what they have learned behind the bars of their office windows. You couldn't, for all sorts of money, hire a man who has been on the road, to be a credit man. He can get his money lots easier as a salesman; he has a much better chance for promotion, too. Still, if the salesman could be induced to become a credit man, he would make the best one possible, because he would understand that the salesman himself can get closer to his customer than any one else and can find out things from him that his customer would not tell to any one else and, having been on the road himself, he would know that really about the only reliable source of information concerning a merchant is the salesman himself.

"When a merchant has confidence enough in a man to buy goods from him --and he will not buy goods from him unless he has that confidence--he will tell him all about his private affairs. He will tell him how much business he is doing, how much profit he is making, how much he owes, what are his future prospects, and everything of that kind. The credit man who was once a salesman would also know that these commercial agency books--the bibles of the average credit man--don't amount to a rap. For my own part, I wish old Satan had every commercial agency book on earth to chuck into the furnace, when he goes below, to roast the reporters for the agencies. A lot of them will go there because a lot of reports are simply outright slander. Commercial agencies break many a good merchant. The heads of the agencies aim to give faithful reports, but they haven't the means.

"Now, just for example, let me tell you what they did to a man who did one of my customers when he first started in business. This man had been a clerk for several years in a clothing store over in Wyoming. He was one of the kind that didn't spend his money feeding slot machines, but saved up $3,500 in cold, hard cash. This was enough for him to start a little clothing shack of his own.