Sunday to the commercial traveler, if to no others, is preeminently a day of rest. If there are stores open during week days he feels that he ought to be at work, and if he gives himself an extra half-hour at noon or evening his conscience pricks him. But upon the Sabbath there is nothing to be done by way of business, unless in getting from one town to another, and it is his rest day.
I slept so late (I admit that I am always lazy whenever I dare be) that I fancied I would have the dining-room to myself, but I had plenty of company. The hotel where I was had an excellent reputation on the road and was a favorite place at which to pass Sunday. I was fortunate enough to meet here a hardware man from my own city whom I knew well, and who had traveled long enough to know almost everybody.
“How is trade?” was, of course, his first question.
I had no bragging to do over my trade, for, it must be confessed, I was not sure that I had sold even half what I ought to have done. So I said, “My trade is only so-so.”
“Well,” said he, “I guess that is about as much as any of us can say. Times are tight. Goods are so infernal cheap and cost so little that if you sell a man four or five pages it don't amount to anything in dollars and cents. I was just telling White here—by the way, let me introduce my friend, Mr. White; sells notions for Haff & Walbridge, New York. I was just telling White that I took a big order from a house yesterday, one covering six pages of note paper, and each item calling for fair quantities, and it amounted to $92. A few years ago it would have footed up $400.”
“It is so in every line,” said White, “everything is down, but we have new lines every season, and keep up trade by having novelties.”
“What a chain-lightning genius Haff is!” exclaimed my frend. “I remember when he traveled for Howard & Sanger; good-natured, voluble, energetic, and uneasy as a lump of mercury. Suddenly he blossomed out as an inventor, and he's kept on inventing ever since. I've been surprised that the man who is father of so many children has not invented a better nursing-bottle or colic exterminator. What's your last novelty?”
“Base balls.”
“Ye gods! Base balls! Well, you've got a mighty good man to fight against.”
“Who's that?”
“Taylor, of Bridgeport. I don't know when I've seen a man of more push than he. I believe he patented or invented the ball that Warner makes, and they placed him in charge of the ball department. He just has balls on the brain; tosses them in his sleep; takes them to church and plays catch with the tenor, and keeps two balls in the air while he drinks a cup of tea. That kind of a man is bound to succeed.”
“Is the base ball trade a large one?”
“Yes, it amounts to a good deal of money. Every notion dealer in the country carries more or less of them in stock. The ball that sells for a nickel is bought by the barrelful; such a ball is sold to the jobbers at 28 or 30 cents per dozen, and to the retailer at 35 to 40 cents. Balls that retail at 10 to 25 cents are the best sellers, but a few good balls go in every bill.”
“How high do they run?”
“The best sewed balls retail at $1.75 each, but the ordinary 'league' ball retails at $1.50. Such a ball is sold to jobbers at $7 to $9 per dozen, except Spaulding's; he keeps his pretty stiff because he gets them into the hands of the National League, and a certain class, because of that, will buy them and no other.”
“Is there any choice in the different makes?”
“Very little. Certain dealers get balls made with their name on and advertise them as being superior to anything made, and very often the manufacturer cannot sell his own brand in the territory where these are. You know people love to be fooled.”
As we went away from the table, we met a gentleman whom my friend introduced as Mr. Hart, of Bradly & Smith, brush manufacturers, New York. Hart evidently was an old timer on the road, and knew the brush business like a book.
“Trade is fair,” said he, “but New York has to compete with brush factories in every city now, whereas, twenty years ago, we had it our own way. That was the time when my firm ran the Methodist Church and laid out Asbury Park, N.J. It was easier to make $50,000 a year then than it is to make $5,000 now.”
I was struck with a point he made against a buyer for a large jobbing house. Some one had said that they bought in good quantities, as compared with one of their competitors. “Yes, they buy in larger quantities,” said he, “but give me the other men. I sell them both, but here is an incident which tells the kind of big buyers your friends are. A year ago I had a new leather-back horse brush that I was selling at $9 a dozen. I showed it to B.'s buyer and it took his eye at once. 'What is the best you will do if I take a quantity?' he asked. 'I would like to sell that at $9, and if I could do it I'd push them.' I knew there was a good profit to us at $9, even where we sold in small lots, so I figured that in quantities we could sell at $7.50. How many do you suppose he ordered?”
“Well,” said my friend, “knowing that it's mighty hard work to sell a $9 brush nowadays, I should say six dozen would be a good order.”
“Yes, so it would; I expected he would order six or eight dozen, but he ordered twenty dozen.”
“The deuce he did! Did he sell them?”
“I was there yesterday and he had sixteen dozen and a half on hand. I don't call that very shrewd buying.”
Sitting in the smoking room was a tall, slim, Yankee-looking sort of a man, who smoked in a nervous way, and when he talked seemed to speak with great earnestness. He was introduced as Mr. Rockwell, a cutlery manufacturer of Meriden, Conn. Somehow these Meriden men are all alike. They are great pushers in business, wire-pullers in politics, and in season and out of season stand by each other. If Wilcox and Curtiss and the Rockwell family were only guaranteed fifty years more of life they would own the State of Connecticut. Rockwell was discoursing upon pocket cutlery, and as it was a subject about which I knew nothing, I took a back seat.
“American manufacturers,” said he, “not only have to fight against poor foreign goods, but what is worse, they have to fight against them under American names and labels. Thirty years ago if a man got up a fancy brand he put 'Sheffield' on it; now this is changed; everything has to have at least an American name. The result is that American goods are damaged by foreign trash, which, having an American brand, is supposed to be American-made. A farmer buys a knife branded 'Missouri Cutlery Shops,' thinking he is getting an honest, home made article. The probabilities are that it was made in Germany, and is of the poorest quality. It does not give satisfaction; so he damns American goods and goes back to his old IXL. And when he gets a poor IXL knife, as he very frequently does, he swears it is bogus.”
“That's so,” said one of his friends. “I often hear men sighing for the old knife of their daddies.”
“Why, here is a sample of the man in this letter. Let me read a few lines. After mentioning our advertisement, he says:
Now I have been hunting a good knife for twenty years, but too much“protective tariff” having shut out competition, we now only get such“pot-metal” cutlery as monopolists choose to give us; nice handleswith hoop-iron or cast blades, not as good for $2 as the old “Barlow”knife boys could buy for a “bit” forty-five years ago. If yours aregood I will be glad to get them, but if they are a cheat, I will callon you with a shot-gun, on my way to Canada, where I will then haveto look for a good knife.
“That man,” continued Rockwell, “believes what he says, probably, but a man of 45 who knows so little ought to be shut up in an idiot asylum. If we could have a law here as they do in England, permitting no goods to be labeled or branded as American-made unless they were made here, such a man would hang his head with shame at his injustice to home manufacturers.”
I liked to hear Rockwell talk; he had a way of giving a sentence in a crisp, sharp way, and then half shutting his eyes for a moment, as if he was waiting to see what the other fellow would say and be ready with an answer.
My friend spoke of him with great enthusiasm, saying his house had done business with him for many years, and looked upon Rockwell as one of the most growing men in the trade. In talking with him afterward about pocket cutlery, he said to me: “No cutlery factory in this country is paying a penny to its stockholders; we are looked upon by the free-traders as coining money, but our men are averaging twice the wages of the English, and three times those paid by Germany, and the labor is about eighty-five percent, of the cost of the pocket knife. The leading American makers turn out good goods, far above the average English or German; but the consumer is not able to tell whether he is using an American or foreign-made knife, because of the habit of branding everything with American names, and we have to bear the curse.”
“Why is it that Meriden people hang together so?” I asked.
“Do we?” he asked, laughing. “Perhaps it is because they're all such good fellows. The rich men there, and there are a good many of them, have always been ready to help any enterprise that came to the town and could make a fair showing. You will find the same men stockholders in a great many different companies; their salesmen help each other, and they are closely united socially. They work together and love their city.”
I don't know any better eulogy to deliver upon a body of business men.
Later in the day, a rather warm conversation near us drew us toward five or six men who seemed to be growing excited. A traveling salesman appeared to be giving a manufacturer some good advice.
“You men,” said he, “seem to think you do a very smart thing when you go to these big buyers and give them an extra 10 per cent., but you don't seem to be capable of learning that in doing this you are cutting your own throats. Only a few months ago I was talking to Simmons. 'I don't like these low prices,' said he, 'nor to have everything down so close to cost; we can't get extra discounts as we can when prices are higher; the most we can get now under ordinary circumstances is 2-1/2 to 5 per cent.' 'How much do you think you ought to get?' I asked him. 'Ten per cent., at least,' said he.”
“But he doesn't get it,” said the manufacturer.
“Oh yes, he does, on a good deal of his stock. He must get it on your goods or he would not be quoting them at the price we pay you for them. We paid you $3.60 for the last lot we bought, and I saw a quotation from him on your goods at $3.62. He is no fool; he does not sell goods at cost. When I saw his quotation my price was $3.60 and will be $3.60 until we clean your goods from our shelves, and it will be a good while before any more of the same brand ever go back there again.”
“But that is all nonsense,” said the other, “he buys the goods at exactly the same price your house does.”
“Then it is time we quit them. If we have no protection on your goods we want to drop them.”
“That's pretty tough,” said the other, half disposed to be angry. “I have no control over your prices; I sell your house as I sell him; I advertise the goods so that the jobber could make a profit if he would, but if he won't I cannot compel him to do it. The jobber has no idea of anything but to beat his competitor in buying and then beat him in cutting the price. Nothing counts in business but a 'cut.' I don't know where we are going to.”
“Well,” said my friend, “suppose we go to dinner.”
A number of traveling men around a Sunday dinner-table, when they feel sure it is going to be a good dinner, is about as entertaining a company as any business man would care to be in. Jokes are necessarily plenty; stories fly about freely, but the man must be very thick-headed who does not pick up bits of information that he is the better for knowing.
At our table were represented knit goods, groceries, cutlery, hardware, crockery, and guns. When the the jokes had flowed about, and firms were being discussed, I heard the dry-goods man say: “Yes, sir, if I wanted to point out two of the longest-headed men who foresaw the coming change in doing business I would mention Butler Bros., of Chicago and New York. I used to sell them notions when they were in Boston, and they were nice men to do business with. It's harder to sell them to-day, for the buyer has grown hardened and cuts to the quick.” “They were the 5-cent counter men, were they not?”
“Yes, 5, 10, and 25 cent counter goods was their hobby, and it beat the great horn spoon to see how the thing spread. Every little cross-roads store had its 5 and 10 cent counters, and manufacturers and jobbers cut in prices to cater to it. Of course it could attract attention only by offering bargains. If a dealer put on his 25-cent counter only such goods as he had been selling at 25 cents, no one would have patronized it. The point in his mind was to attract attention by the bargains he could show. He could make a fair profit on the whole lay-out, but perhaps one-third of the stock was sold very close. Under ordinary circumstances a dealer paying 20 cents for an article would sell it at 30 to 40, but now it went on the 25-cent counter.”
“But it hurt regular trade.”
“Yes, it did to this extent, that it led men to dabble in things not in their own line. The dealer was apt to do the most cutting in such goods as were not in his regular line. He was inclined to be stiff on his own goods, but say he was a dry-goods dealer, it did not hurt him to cut on tin dippers, wash-basins, wooden-ware, etc. So when the hardware men followed with their cheap counters they were most inclined to cut on notions, and in fact the cheap-counter business has very much to do in the mixing up of trades and the demoralization of prices.”
“Don't you think it was the basis of department stores?”
“Yes, I do. Men saw that their small line of crockery, or tinware, or stationery sold well, and they increased the assortment, and finally led up to the 'department' idea.”
“How is this 5-cent counter business managed? I mean, how are the sales made?”
“Largely in assortments; for instance, if you pick up advertisements of the houses making a specialty of such goods, you will find that they offer assortments for a certain amount of money. They give the goods in detail; the dozen price of each article, the quantity sent in the assortment, the cost to the dealer, and the total retail price. Of course if the dealer is just starting out in such goods the entire assortment is what he wants, but if he is in it already the list enables him to buy just those things he needs. You'd be surprised to see the profit there is in these things, even in the present hard times. For instance, I saw an assortment of 5-cent goods consisting of 167 dozen articles which would retail, as you can figure, for $100.20; cost to the dealer, $60; profit, $40.20, or 67 per cent, on the investment.”
“Let's go into the 5-cent business,” said the cutlery man
“Better start a knife-stand on the street. Do you make goods for street-men?”
“No; they handle the cheapest Dutch trash.”
“Where do they get it?”
“In New York and Philadelphia. Seven or eight years ago some street fakir got hold of a showy two-blade penknife at about $2 a dozen. He took his stand on the street and they went off readily at 25 cents. The business seemed to spread all over the country like wild-fire, and especially during the fair season. Jobbers in the inland cities were cleaned out of stock they looked upon as dead and worthless. Of course, as soon as this demand was felt houses began to prepare to supply it. At first the fakirs were willing to pay $2 per dozen, but when new stocks came out cuts were made and the prices steadily went down.”
“What do they pay now?”
“These 25-cent tables do not cost, on an average, $1.50 per dozen knives. They get out a very handsome-looking two-blade knife, in bone or ebony handle, for $1.32 per dozen; a good-looking jack-knife for $1.40 to $1.75; pearl handle penknives for $1.75 to $2.”
“Are they worth a cent?”
“Not to cut with. They sell by the eye entirely; handles and blades are well finished, and they seem to be worth a good deal more than the price asked for them.”
“We had quite a run with some of these men on revolvers,” said the hardware man. “We had a wood handle 32-caliber that cost 85 cents—a good pistol. A seedy-looking fellow bought two or three hundred from us. His plan was to go into a shop, saloon, or store, and in a confidential way tell the boss or clerk that he was dead broke and would sell his $5 revolver for $2.50. At that time the average gunsmith was asking $3.50 to $5 for a common revolver, and he sold enough every day to make him good wages.”
“Thank goodness!” said the grocer, “we don't have these snide affairs in our line.”
“No, people have to give your goods away. It's samples of soap, samples of tobacco, samples of tea, samples of baking-powder, etc., etc., from morning till night. It's a mighty mean line that has to be given away.”
“This giving away,” said the crockery man, “has made a big hole in our business. Some one suddenly discovered that crockery would be a taking thing to help work off poor goods. Of course, the home jobber benefited by it for a very short time, and then the New York importers stepped in and took the cream. Baking-powder men, coffee-grinders, tea houses, and others sent out crockery, and people, got so much of it for nothing they had no excuse for buying any.”
“I doubt if it really hurts us much in the long run,” said the Meriden man. “Here was a baking-powder concern in Ohio that offered a set, consisting of fifty-one pieces, of silver-plated ware with every case of their own goods. If you had read their advertisement you would have been sure that Rogers never turned out any better goods than these they were giving away. But the fifty-one pieces cost them just $7.50! They used a good many thousand sets. The table caster was worth about 70 cents. You can imagine the quality! Now, I hold that in the long run cheap stuff will help good goods. People who have it will get disgusted with it, and will replace it with reliable ware, while if they had never had the trash they would not have had their own consent to buy the better goods.”
“Perhaps the most wonderful thing about business today,” was said, “is the amount of information given in circulars, price lists and advertisements. I can remember twenty years back where a price list simply gave you the briefest statement of the article, sometimes the size, but oftener not, and the price. Nowadays an ordinary list is a mine of information. I remember having reached the conclusion that one of the things particularly needed was a circular for the consumer about the way to strop and take care of a razor. I could not find a syllable on the subject in any English or American price list. I wrote to four manufacturers for points, but received the briefest of replies and no practical help. I sat down to write the circular. Did you gentlemen ever try your hand at such a job?”
No one had.
“Then I just want you to try it once, and you will believe what I tell you, that it will be about as tough a job as you ever undertook. I had been selling razors for ten or twelve years; I had talked with barbers, as you all have; I had heard customers talk; I had heard shrewd remarks and silly remarks; I had heard manufacturers occasionally drop a hint, and now I was to sit down and evolve out of my memory and experience a circular on the subject that would be of benefit to every one handling a razor.”
“How did you make out?”
“Well, perhaps the best answer to that is the fact that our firm sends out the circular to-day just as I wrote it eight years ago. But I started to speak of the large amount of information you find in circulars and advertising nowadays. Advertising is much more of a science than it was. Pick up a decent trade paper and the ordinary advertisement is full of shrewd points for those handling the goods, that cannot help being of immense value to retailers. And I can call your attention to this: these advertisements, these shrewd ones, are always written by men who have been traveling salesmen. Such men know the points that ought to be brought out.”
“Yes,” said the dry-goods man, “how is this, cut from the advertisement of a list of five-cent counter goods. Don't you believe the man who wrote this knew the soft side of a retailer?” And he read:
HOW TO DO IT.Bundle up some of the unseasonable goods that are taking up valuablecounter space, and put them away on the shelves. By this economy ofspace, and with the possible addition of a temporary counter, youhave gained room enough to admit of the introduction of a “5c, 10c or25c counter.” The next thing to do is to send to some reliable jobberfor a bill of staple household sellers, with which you can mixhundreds of articles from your own stock; then send out a littlecircular (“dodger”) to the over-anxious inhabitants, telling them ofa few of the articles to be found on your “Cheap Counter,” and theywill respond as readily as though you had sent them free tickets tothe circus. It matters not that they have not seen one of thesecounters before, there will be the same rush—the same scramble forfirst choice—the same telling of friends about bargains bought; andinstead of sitting around waiting for the advent of spring, you willhave pocketed a nice profit from your cheap counter, besides havingworked off any amount of odds and ends that might have been in yourstore five years, and would have remained five years longer had notthis modern wonder made an exit for them.
“That sounds mighty like Ed. Butler,” said the dry-goods man.
Occasionally a traveling salesman meets at the hotel or on the train the head of some large house, who is making a trip for special reasons of his own. Such a man is always sure to be affable with every one, but he is especially conciliatory to the salesmen he meets on his route. Perhaps this is due to the fact that he is a stranger and these old travelers can help him, if they are so inclined, or it may be for the purpose of leading them to be talkative with him, and in that talk he can gather points that will be of value to him. Whatever the cause may be, there is no question as to the fact. But the talkativeness is not always on one side. I have met wholesale merchants on the road who would talk freely and tell me more about themselves and their business in one evening, while we sat in a country hotel, than they would have done in five years of ordinary intercourse in the city.
The man who sits in the house all the year falls into several errors. One is in thinking that people are anxious to buy of him, and that his traveling men ought to find it very easy to get an order in almost every store. Another error is in believing that the orders come solely because of the firm's popularity, rather than of any merit in the salesman. I suppose there are goods so well advertised that, in a large measure, they sell themselves; but, outside of patent medicines, I can not now recall one such item.
We were talking of this, half a dozen of us, while in the smoking-room Sunday evening, and one of us said: “The best man to work for, if you do your level best, is a man who has been on the road himself. Such a man always knows where and when allowances must be made for dull trade, and for cutting of prices. The man who always makes the most trouble, and who was fore-ordained to be a dashed fool, is the book-keeper. The balancing of his little gods of books is of more account, in his eyes, than is the sale of a bill of goods. And having the ear of the firm he usually gets permission to do any piece of dashed foolishness that he suggests. But next to him is the merchant, who never steps out of his own door to try to sell a bill, or the manufacturer who runs his little shop in a one-horse way and never goes out to see what others are doing, or learn what consumers are saying about his goods. I once traveled for such an old block-head, and, as I started off on a trip, I advised him to discontinue making a certain article, telling him it was out of date and could only be worked off on greenhorns in business. I guess I was as much interested in getting them off as if they were my own, and I lost no chance of working in a few wherever I could. The same amount of work on salable goods would have paid big money. Well, when I got home, may I never breathe, if that old ass hadn't taken my sales as evidence of the big demand for the goods and was piling up the store-house with the same stock!”
“Yes,” said another, “but the man who sits in his office usually makes the biggest mistake in supposing that he is a great deal smarter than the men he sells. Because he is a peg higher in trade, as jobber, importer, or manufacturer, he imagines he is also greater in ability, and he has no hesitancy in advising these poor devils about their business. I was selling scythes several years ago, and worked for just such a man as I have been describing. He was a good mechanic, but pig-headed; goods must be made and finished a certain way, because that was the way they had been made for thirty years. The result was we were losing our trade. I knew he was blaming me for the trade falling off, so I persuaded him to make a flying trip with me to Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit and Chicago. The dealers at Buffalo were rather old fogy, and we got our order there from our regular customer, but when we struck Cleveland I saw the old man open his eyes. It was one of Blossom's off-days, so he didn't waste much time on us, but said he didn't want any of our goods. Deming hadn't got into silver mining, so we couldn't get an order from him by buying a share of stock, but Van was about half-full, and he opened up on us. Then Toledo piled it on. There were four jobbing houses there in our line, but not one would buy. I knew one buyer pretty well. After we had been the rounds we came back to his place, and I asked him to tell us frankly how we could get some of his trade. He gave in detail the ideas that were current among retailers and consumers regarding shape and finish of scythes, putting it down in a clear-headed way, so that a baby could have understood him, but showing the shrewdness of a man who was studying all the points in connection with his trade. It did the business. We went up to Detroit, and had a long talk with Charlie Fletcher, and the old man bought a lot of samples and went home. On my next trip, you can bet, I had salable goods.”
“You can study a man as he is only when you see him in his own store,” said a third. “When a country merchant comes into Chicago, and walks into your store, he is very desirous that you shall be pleasantly impressed by him; so he puts on his best manners. You are on your native heath, you are surrounded by your clerks, and you are considerable of a man in a city of big men, while he realizes he is a very small toad in a little country puddle. But just put the shoe on the other foot, and go into his store. Now, he is on his own ground; you are asking favors of him in the shape of orders, and all the petty smartness comes out, if there is any in him. It is an opportunity that permits a mean man to be his meanest, and draws out of a generous, kindly soul all the milk of human kindness there is in his heart.”
“Well,” said a dry-goods man, “there are a good many kinds of men in the world, but the man who makes me fighting mad is in Pittsburg. He's most infernally polite, but he never wants anything. As I go back to his desk he is either reading or writing. I say: 'Good morning, Mr. Blane,' and hand him my card. He scarcely looks at it, but in the most solemn and dignified way says: 'We do not need anything in your line to-day.' Then I open up on my leading items: 'I have a very nice line of novelties in so-and-so.' He looks off from his paper to say: 'We are full of so-and-so to-day,' then goes to reading again. 'I have some desirable patterns in new goods in silks.' He looks up to say, 'We have enough silks for the present.' 'I can give you special prices on hairpins.' He looks up again to say: 'Our stock of hairpins is full.' And then I bow myself out. I asked the boss one day if he ever sold the firm when he was on the road. He said he did once. Blane was out of town and he sold his partner. Still, I call on him every time I go to Pittsburg.”
“Pittsburg? Oh, that's where Joe Horne hangs out.”
“Who's Joe Horne?”
“Why, Joe is the man whose orders are as well known in the west as Willimantie thread. Every New York drummer stops at Pittsburg, and every dry-goods man sells Joe Horne, or says he does, so that now, west of the Mississippi, the first greeting given a drummer is, 'Show us Joe Horne's order.' Joe must be a very good fellow to give his orders so impartially.”
“Did you know Luce?” one dry-goods man asked the other.
“Luce, of Toledo? I should say I did.”
“He was a tough man to tackle unless he felt just right. They tell of a put-up job on a drummer who used to call on him. He couldn't manage ever to get an order out of Luce. One day he said to a friend, who always sold Luce, 'How is it that you succeed and I fail? I sell the best trade in the country and to a good many men that you don't sell; now, why is it I can't catch on to Luce?' The other asked, 'Do you ever talk politics to him?' 'No.' 'Well, that's his soft side. He's a regular old moss-back, Vallandigham Democrat. If you want to succeed, go in on that line.' His friend thanked him, and the next time he went to Toledo he felt better. Luce wanted no goods, as usual. Then Mr. Traveling Man opened on politics. He remarked that all over the State there was a good show for burying the d—d Republicans that election. Luce glared at him in speechless wonder. Then Mr. Drummer launched out on the infernal meanness of the Republican leaders, but by this time Luce was ready for him, and the way that poor devil was talked to would make you sorry. When he next saw his friend there came pretty near being a fight, but the friend thought it too good a joke to keep and told Luce. No one enjoyed a joke better than Mr. Luce, and, by thunder, the next time the man called on him he gave him a good order, and they were the best of friends afterwards.”
“I often wonder if any one ever fools a man equal to the way he fools himself. I always laugh over a customer of mine in Cincinnati who always insists he must have 'a leetle adwantage.' The boys on the road like Old Pap and laugh over his 'leetle adwantage.' He says: 'I must haf a leetle adwantage ofer New York and Philadelphy. They ton't pay no freight. They get their goods at their door; I must haf a leetle adwantage to cover the freight.' The old man has this so firmly fixed in his head that we have to humor him by giving him 'a leetle adwantage.'”
“Some men think that in giving an order all they need to do is to state their own terms and time, and every one will dance to their tune. A concern in the Northwest that failed (and they ought to), used to write their orders on a blank that was headed:
All prices guaranteed. Privilege of increasing,decreasing, or countermandingNo charge for boxing or drayage.
“How was that for smartness?”
“You say they failed?”
“They did.”
“They ought to have got rich!”
“Yes, they are a fair type of the average buyer; it's cut here, screw down there, pare over yonder. No matter what your price may be, it's always, 'What are you going to do for me?' as if he must have a special cut. I showed Hibbard & Spencer's buyer a new tool the other day, and gave him my price. `What's the best you can do?' I told him that was the best I could do. 'But what is your price to Hibbard & Spencer?' As though every salesman must have laid away in a snug corner, a special price for that important firm! `I have given you my price; it is the best I can do with anyone.' They are not willing anyone shall make a cent but themselves; they want the whole apple, and are not willing to give the manufacturer the core.”
When I reached T. I had a very disagreeable duty before me, namely, to fix a misunderstanding with a customer. The house had written me: “Atkinsen & Co. bought a bill last October from Ned on 60 days' time; goods went exactly as ordered. When the bill became due we sent a statement, with a mem. that if not heard from in ten days we would draw. In reply they sent us a letter saying the goods were sold them under arrangement by which they are to be paid for when sold, and that we had better hold our draft, etc. We wrote that we did not do that kind of business; that our terms were plainly stated on the invoice, and that upon receipt of that, if not correct, they should have notified us at once. To this they sent a 'Smart Aleck' letter, and when we drew on them allowed our draft to be returned. Settle the matter up; take back the goods, if no better way suggests itself, but close it up. And close up our deal with them; they are the kind of men we do not want to do business with.”
To be ordered to get money out of a slow customer is bad enough, but to have to settle an account with a mean one is a thousand times worse. The slow customer is usually ready to dun himself, and full of apologies for his slowness, but the “Smart Aleck” who wants to be small has a hundred arguments ready at hand to prove that he is a very superior person who proposes to stand on his rights. Every traveling man has such customers as this “on his list,” and is occasionally called upon to tackle them.
I had made up my mind that I would find Atkinson rather tall and slim, but he wasn't; he was a pleasant-looking man, and I handed out my card as if I had called around to sell him a big bill. His face lost some of the smile when he saw the firm's name, but I began to talk of trade and the weather, and kept it up until I had forced him into an appearance of being sociable. Eventually I led the talk around to his stock and was fully prepared for his decisive “We do not need any.” I mentioned guns, rifles, cartridges, caps—everything—but he was full. I was determined that he should introduce the subject of the account, and this he did when I made a move as if to go.
“Did your house tell you about our account?”
“They told me to stick to all the money I could get,” I said, pleasantly.
“Have you a statement of our account with you?”
“I think I have.” And I appeared to be searching for it, though, of course, I knew the exact page and line it was on. “Here it is: $43.30.”
He went to his ledger, found it correct, I suppose, and then from his cash drawer counted out the amount and asked for a receipt. I gave him one, thanked him for the money, and then remarked that I was sorry there had been any misunderstanding about the terms.
“I like to see a house live up to its agreement,” he said, in a surly tone.
“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.”
His voice had a tremor in it, as if a very little encouragement would bring tears.
“Yes,” said the other, “it is hard. I've been there. I had a girl six years old that was to me all yours is to you, and all she ever can be. I started off one Monday morning leaving her as happy as a lark. On Wednesday I was telegraphed to come in, and when I got home Thursday morning she didn't know me. Just as long as she could speak she kept asking for me. I never start out on a Monday morning but that I think of her, and I never walk toward the house Saturday night that I do not miss her. I don't know, but it seems to me that a traveling man has no business to have a wife and family.”
“I never knew you had lost a child,” said the other; “if I should lose my baby I believe I would go insane.”
“Oh, no, you wouldn't; you would do just as every one else does; you'd go on and suffer. But the men that can be with their families seven days in the week ought to thank their God every hour of the day.”
“I travel a good deal by team,” said a third, “and am frequently driving as late as 10 or 11 o'clock at night. As I go along the road and see the light shining out of the windows, and see family groups in their homes, gathered around the lamp, I tell you, boys, I get homesick. It's the time of day I want to be at home with my family. I envy every man I see in such a home, and I contrast his condition, surrounded with his wife and children, and a long night of rest before him, with my work. I finish up my day at a late hour at night, then perhaps have to get up at an unearthly hour in the morning to catch a train. There's mighty little poetry in this kind of a life.”
“But, after all,” said the first speaker, “our wives suffer the most. They have the responsibility of the home and children on their shoulders all the time, and they worry more or less over us. My wife never sees a boy coming to the door with a circular but she thinks he has a dispatch saying I am either maimed or killed in a railroad accident. Then if the children are sick she has to shoulder the burden alone, and it is all the greater because she always tortures herself by believing that she must be in some way to blame. I tell you our wives have the hardest part to bear.”
“That's so,” came from several.