The Bail Jumper Part 2

"Well, look at this," said Burton, producing another web.

"Yes, that's about what I wanted. And what will the price on that be?"

"Ten cents."

"Ten cents! What a dreadful price for a piece of cotton. My, everything is getting so dear, I can't see what we farmers are comin' to. Mrs.

Winters sent to Winnipeg for hers, and you ought to see it-the very loveliest cotton, and only six and a half cents, and a box of slate pencils thrown in for the children. No, dear me, I couldn't pay such a price as that. I might, yes, I would be willing to pay eight cents for it, the same as the other, now, an' you're makin' a good profit on it at that."

"I am sorry, Madam," said Burton, trying not to be annoyed at her attempt to take charge of the firm's business, "but our prices are as close as we find it possible to handle the goods, especially on staples like cotton. That is a really good article; may I cut off the amount you require?"

"Yes, at eight cents--"

Burton returned his scissors to his pocket, and the lady started for the door, when Gardiner, who had finished with his customer and stood listening to the dialogue, called her back.

"Don't be in a hurry, Mrs. Mandle," he said, in a winning voice that appealed to the lady's instinct for flattery, "there is a web here that Mr. Burton didn't know about, and perhaps it will suit you."

Gardiner went behind the counter and pulled out the very eight-cent piece that had been already shown.

"Now here is a ten-cent line that I can recommend to you," he said, leaning well across the counter and speaking in a confidential voice.

Burton was about to point out his mistake, when something in the eye of his employer warned him that the transaction had been taken out of his hands. "This is a regular ten-cent line, and extra value at that, but I got something a little special on it by taking an unusual quant.i.ty from the factory at one time. Of course, we generally figure when we get a snap on a purchase that at least part of the bargain should be ours, but with an old and valued customer like you hard and fast rules don't always apply. It's something I really should not do, but under the circ.u.mstances I will let you have anything up to twenty yards off this web for eight cents."

Mrs. Mandle beamed with pleasure. "That's like you, Mr. Gardiner, I always find that I can deal with you. Not that I have anything against this young man--" she continued, as though anxious not to place Burton in an unfavourable light.

"Oh, that's all right," laughed Gardiner. "Mr. Burton has general instructions applying to our regular customers, but when he knows you better he will meet your requirements as well as I do, I am sure. Now shall it be twenty yards?"

"I only wanted twelve," Mrs. Mandle confessed, "but since it is what you might call a bit of a bargain, I believe I will just take the twenty."

Gardiner smiled genially and measured off the cloth, but Burton observed that as he did so he had a crook in each thumb, which allowed about a half an inch of over-lap on each yard measured. Mrs. Mandle paid for her purchase, and left with a smile to Gardiner and a friendly nod to Burton, and said she would probably be in in a few days with a case of eggs and some other produce.

"Bring them right in here, Mrs. Mandle," said Gardiner, as he closed the door after her. Coming back to the counter, he said to Burton, half-apologetically, "I forgot to tell you, Burton, to put up all prices on Mrs. Mandle. She is one of those dear souls who, as a matter of principle, will never buy unless they think they are getting some concession in price. It's a simple matter to raise the price and drop it again, and it pleases them."

Burton flushed a little. He had been brought up to believe that strict honesty was the best policy, and it seemed to him that the very foundations of his conception of business success were being swept away.

These great merchant princes, who were lauded in the papers and welcomed in the most distinguished circles, were they men of high standards and n.o.ble principles, or were they consummate liars and cheats?

"I do not mean to question your methods," he said, at length, "but-is it, such a transaction as that, I mean, exactly honest?"

If he expected Gardiner to be angry at his frankness his fear was soon dispelled.

"Why not?" laughed his employer. "The cotton is ours; we can sell it for what we like, can't we? If we ask fifty cents for it that's our business, or if we choose to give it away, that's our business. These people who are always trying to beat us down really don't mean any harm, and we don't do them any harm. We just make them happy. Take Mrs.

Mandle, for instance. She thinks she saved forty cents, and that thought will lighten her troubles for a week. As a matter of fact, she bought eight yards more than she needed, but no doubt it will come handy sometime."

"I think I would give a real cut, if I pretended to," persisted Burton.

"You can't afford to. See, that ten-cent cotton costs me six and three-quarter cents. You may think I could sell at eight and get out on it. I can't. Let me explain my position, so you will understand it better. Last year I sold thirty-seven thousand dollars worth of goods.

My net profits were four thousand five hundred dollars, or just about thirteen per cent. Now, no matter what an article may cost me, if I give fifteen per cent. off the established selling price, I am losing money.

Isn't that clear? And as some people have the bargain mania, we have to give them fict.i.tious bargains, just as the doctor prescribes fict.i.tious drugs for patients who think they can't get well unless they take something."

Burton said no more, but he was not convinced.

A few days later a customer asked for a pound of fifty-cent black bulk tea. Burton found the fifty-cent bin empty. "I'm sorry," said he, "but we appear to be out of the fifty-cent line. How would this suit?" and he was about to offer another brand when Gardiner, who had overheard the remark, called across the store, "That's fifty-cent tea in the left-hand bin."

Now the left-hand bin contained thirty-five cent tea, and Burton knew it.

To refuse to fill the order from the bin indicated would amount to resigning his position, yet he was determined not to take advantage of any customer. For a moment he hesitated. Then he weighed the tea out of the thirty-five cent bin, but he gave the customer a pound and seven ounces.

Under the grocery counter were a number of swinging standards on which sugar and salt barrels were swung in and out as desired. The reserve supply was kept in a warehouse at the back, and on a quiet day it occurred to Burton to bring in a number of barrels and fill all the standards. Gardiner observed him and suggested that the barrels should be left outside until needed. Burton answered that he thought it would be an advantage to have them in; besides, it was damp in the shed, and the sugar showed some disposition to cake, while the salt became very hard.

"Yes," admitted Gardiner, "but it will weigh two per cent. more as it is than after it stands in here for a week, and we handle sugar on less than five per cent."

In selling a gallon of coal oil Burton discovered that the oil pump brought rather less than a gallon at a stroke. He reported the matter, thinking the pump needed repairing.

"How much do you estimate it is running short?" asked his employer.

"About five per cent."

"That's too bad. It should be ten."

"But surely you don't mean to short-measure our customers? When we sell a gallon, we sell a gallon, do we not?"

"Theoretically, yes. But some things do not work out in practice quite the same as in theory. Look here, Burton," and Gardiner's voice took on a serious tone, "I have sold coal oil for ten years, for myself and others, and in all that time I have never opened a barrel that gave the merchant full measure. If he gets off with a ten per cent. loss he can consider himself lucky. I have seen barrels that were quite empty, yet we had to pay for full measurement. It's all very well to have principles and theories, but what are you to do when you are face to face with such conditions?"

"Raise the price until it will show a profit, but give full measurement."

Gardiner laughed. "You wouldn't sell a barrel in a year," he said. "The public would refuse to pay your price. They would rather be cheated, and not know it, than pay an honest price, and know it. The public bring these things upon themselves. They place a premium upon dishonesty. They will actually coax a man to lie to them. Tell a man, or better still, a woman, that you are selling a two dollar article for a dollar, and she will fight her way to the counter; but tell her the truth, that you are selling an article worth a dollar for a dollar, and she will pa.s.s your store in search of a merchant who has fictions more to her liking. If the public want us to play fair, why do they refuse to set the example, or at least show some appreciation of fair treatment? They are never tired of telling of the dishonesty of their merchants; I could relate deeds of trickery resorted to by customers which make the devices we practise look like the harmless sport of little children. But, to return to the subject, we could adulterate the coal oil and give them full measurement, if that would please you better."

"But isn't adulteration against the law?"

"So are turkey raffles."

Burton winced. He had attended one of these country gatherings the previous evening, and come home considerably lighter in pocket although without any feathered trophies.

"I do not mean to be personal," Gardiner said, kindly enough. "I merely want to show that, after all, the law takes very little notice of the man who steals in a gentlemanly way. Robbery is an art, and it is the crude thief that gets into trouble."

"Speaking of adulteration reminds me of one of my employers, who was a druggist as well as a general store keeper. He was an honest, well-intended fellow, but he didn't propose to let any one get very much the better of him. Now it happened that the rural munic.i.p.ality required a thousand ounces of strychnine, put up in half-ounce bottles, for gopher poison. The drug at that time was worth fifty-eight cents an ounce wholesale, and when the council came to the boss for his price he quoted seventy-five cents, which was not unreasonable, seeing that he had to furnish the bottles and labels and do the bottling-not a job to be desired. But these councillors, being anxious to safeguard the interests of their good friends the ratepayers, and incidentally give a lesson in good bargaining, sent to the city for prices. When they came back and told the boss they could get their supply for sixty cents I expected he would tell them to go and get it, and to make certain other calls while they were about it, but he just laughed and said if the city firm could do it for that he guessed he could, and he took the order.

And he cleared three hundred dollars on that transaction."

"How could that be possible, if the strychnine cost him fifty-eight cents, and he sold for sixty?" queried Burton.

"Because Epsom salts cost him four cents a pound and the gophers never knew the difference."

Both men laughed, and at that moment the store door opened, and a farmer, furred and frost covered, struggled in with a case of eggs.

"Where will you have the eggs, Mr. Gardiner?" he called, kicking the door shut with his heel.

"Just set the case down, Mr. Mandle, we will attend to them," but the obliging Mr. Mandle insisted on carrying it to the rear of the store.

"The missus will be in in a minute, an' fight it out with ye," announced Mr. Mandle. "She got off at the post-office. She's wantin' a bit coat, an' she's been writin' to the city for prices, an' I'm thinkin' she's expectin' an answer to-day. But just let me have half a pound of MacDonald chewin' an' she can do as she likes with the rest."

In a few minutes Mrs. Mandle appeared, and was promptly taken in hand by Gardiner. The selling of the coat was, as he expected, a difficult matter, but she was finally persuaded that a regular $24.50 coat at $20 was good buying. The price-tag, which Gardiner had deftly slipped off the coat before showing it, was marked $18.