CHAPTER XI.
The Portrait Business—Tricks of the Trade—The Band and Hall Plan—Excitement and Joke at Voting Contest—The Frame Scheme.
The season came when I was to go on the road again. The winter had been one largely of rest and study, during which I had practiced my vocation enough to make a little money and keep my hand in. Added to the capital acquired in the latter part of the previous summer’s campaign, I was ready to take up almost any line of work.
I confess I had a yearning for something new; something that would lead me along the quieter walks of life, and be less wearing on nerves and throat than the street selling of the former season. After looking around, and making a list of dealers and their stock, which might be useful in the future, I decided that for the present I would turn my attention to the picture or portrait business.
It was a comparatively new thing then, and even now it has not been entirely worked to death.
There was then a fair profit in pictures or portraits, and by the time one sold a high-priced frame the outcome was immense. I got my instructions, and when I first started out was half inclined to believe that the trade would prove too humdrum, a too every-day sort of an affair, to suit my hustling nature.
I soon found, however, that it took as lively working as anything I had been engaged in if I wanted to make it a success; hence, I fell to in earnest, determined that a success it should be.
It is not worth while to relate all the little, ingenious dodges employed, or the extraordinary efforts I made upon emergency. I remembered the maxim, that what made a good argument for one line would do for another, and so, altering it to suit the article and the circumstances, I drew largely on the fund of expedients gathered in other fields, and worked on human nature in the same old way. I soon got to be very successful, and when once I decided there was a chance to place a picture I seldom gave up until I had succeeded.
I never was ashamed of my business, and generally managed to have my presence in a town pretty well advertised. When I had been there a couple of days, and went swinging down the street, there were few if any of the citizens who saw me but would know I was the picture man, who was taking orders for enlarged portraits and the like, and plenty of them would have some remark to that effect. I carried a fine line of samples, was a pleasant, fluent talker, and I fairly believe many a lady would have been disappointed if I had not called on her with my wares. Sometimes I took orders direct for frames to the pictures; sometimes I waited and delivered the picture placed in a frame, trusting to be able to sell the latter at a good price. If a town at large did not turn out the average profit, then a single individual or so would have to bear the sins of omission of the rest.
There are more tricks in the picture business than one would imagine. I know of one fakir who works the following scheme: After staying in the town long enough to make a study of the inhabitants and the peculiarities and foibles of the more prominent, he selects his victim.
He calls on some lady leading in social circles, church work or the like, and obtains a private interview.
He tells her that a number of her lady friends and admirers have decided to present her with a fine, enlarged, crayon portrait of herself, and that he has been instructed to call and get her photograph.
Naturally, she is surprised and highly gratified, giving him the picture without the least hesitancy. At the same time she is probably anxious to learn the names of the donors.
The fakir tells her that that is a profound secret, and that he is sworn to reveal no names, though he has no hesitation in giving her the cost of the picture. That is to be twenty-five dollars. Then he starts for the door, but turns around to say, “Oh, by the way, they said nothing about a frame. Don’t you want to buy one? A picture of that kind never produces one-half the effect without a frame, and of course we can give you a better quality at a cheaper rate than you can get from your local dealers.”
Sometimes she would say, “I do not think I will buy until I get the picture.”
Then the fakir proceeds to tell her that his reputation is staked on that picture, and that if it is satisfactory he will obtain a dozen orders for the ten-dollar size; and that he could not think of delivering such a work of art without a properly matched and corresponding frame.
The lady is already in a good state of mind, being elated over the idea of receiving such an elegant present, and is not at all inclined to quibble on the matter of expense; the fakir is argumentative, eloquent and persuasive. She falls his victim. In a few days the portrait is delivered, grandly framed, and the flattered lady hands out her share, never suspecting that the cost of the frame well covered the price of it and the picture.
That is one way to make the business pay, and if the lady is too innocent to find out the deception, her portrait can be made a stepping-stone for a dozen other orders, just as was suggested to her. After all, people are a good deal like sheep—a whole flock will follow where one leads, however unwittingly.
The fact is, I would have been willing to give away the portrait every time if I could have obtained full price for the frame, had it not been contrary to business principles.
Sometimes, after securing a number of orders, some of them would be turned back to me. The party might die, or go broke, or something else happen, and I usually had some dead wood on my hands about the time I was almost ready to leave.
That gave me little trouble. The frames were very fine, of six-inch, heavy moulding, beautifully fluted and with gilt or oxidized trimmings. So far as looks went, they were worth all you might ask for them, if you left out of account the actual cost of manufacture. I would walk into a man’s place of business and set the frame against something so the light could shine full upon it. Then I would ask:
“What do you think of that for six dollars?”
Customer.—“It’s pretty nice, but don’t try to sell me any today; I haven’t the money.”
Agent.—“Who said I wanted to sell them? I am giving them away.”
Customer.—“How is that?”
Agent.—“I’ll tell you. I am in the picture business, and only furnish frames as an accommodation. I had some thirteen orders turned back on me, and I want to get rid of the frames. Freight is double first-class, and it don’t pay to ship them back. Besides, I haven’t the time to fool with them, and I’m going to close them out regardless. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If I can get thirteen orders in this town I’ll deliver them, just like this, all complete and ready to frame your picture in, for one dollar apiece. And I’ll bet one hundred dollars you never saw a frame of that kind sold under seven dollars.”
Customer (examining the frame and getting interested).—“Well, I must say, that is pretty cheap.”
Agent.—“Cheap? Why, it is virtually giving them away, but I want to get rid of them.”
Customer.—“You go ahead and see what you can do with some one else. In the meantime I’ll see my wife and find out what she thinks about it. You can drop in after dinner for my answer.”
Agent.—“See here, my friend, don’t make so much fuss over a small sum. Your wife would be ashamed to object to it. Would you kick if she invested such a little amount as that at home? Of course, you wouldn’t. You’re not that kind. If your wife don’t say it’s right up-to-date and altogether lovely I’ll let her have it for nothing. What more do you want?”
Customer.—“Well, I don’t know. Have you sold any of them yet.”
Agent—“Oh, yes; I’ve taken several orders this morning.”
Customer—“Well, I guess you can put me down for two frames. You agents are worse than fly paper. You stick a man every time.”
Agent—“Ha, ha. Do you think so? If I have the luck today that I expect I’ll deliver those frames bright and early tomorrow morning. Good-day, sir.”
At which point I would back myself out as gracefully as I could and go in search of another customer. Perhaps, before I was out of the door, he would stop me to talk picture, and eventually insist on my enlarging photographs for himself and wife to fill the purchases.
I was doing well, and making plenty of money, but I wanted to do better.
I might have had a presentment of my fate when I launched out, from the fact that I had already noticed a peculiarity about my fortunes. While I could do well by myself, or could work well in company so long as the other fellow ostensibly managed the concern, yet when I attempted to play manager over other people I always went broke, or the aggregation dissolved with breathless suddenness.
I thought of this before I branched out in the picture business after the fashion I did, but the idea I had seemed such a good one, and I was already so largely a winner, I shut my eyes, locked my teeth hard, and vowed I would break the hoodoo that seemed to be over me, or know the reason why.
Later on I discovered the reason in this particular case, and the knowledge only came just in time to save me from again landing in the ranks of the busted. The brief history of the experiment was about this:
After trying the old style of canvassing, that is, personally taking orders from door to door and returning at a future day to make deliveries and collections, I struck on one of the most elaborate schemes for working the portrait business that had ever been introduced.
The idea was probably suggested by my meeting, as I had done more than once before, with a party of stranded people of the theatrical profession. In the summer-time you are apt to run across the very best kind of people who are out of an engagement, or who may have been left behind by an absconding manager of a “snap” company, which they had joined in default of anything better to do until the regular fall season opened.
After thinking the matter over for a day or two, and arranging my plans, I formed a company consisting of eight people, all of them musicians and actors. I got some printing done, and ordered more, and started out on the road to work my business in opera houses or large halls. I had with me, also, a superior artist.
During the day, by way of advertising, the band would give open air concerts, at times when they were not otherwise engaged, and in the evening there was a grand, free entertainment in the opera house. Between the acts I made a talk from the stage, exhibited specimens of work by the aid of the “oxo-hydrogen lime light,” and solicited business. I took the orders, finished the pictures, delivered and collected, all before leaving the city. I paid the expenses of my troupe and had them canvass during the day, paying them an additional ten per cent. upon all the orders they secured. It was immense.
Up to about this time the large, framed portrait was a rarity, and in every vicinity there were hundreds of people with small pictures of their relatives or themselves, which, with the proper working, they discovered they wanted to possess in an enlarged form.
In those towns or cities which I visited (and, of course, with such an aggregation to support, I selected only the larger towns), I made my business quite the fashionable folly or fad, and many a ten dollars was, no doubt, expended just to keep in with the swim. I heightened the interest in half a dozen ways, and for a time certainly met with all the success I had anticipated.
Sometimes I came to the rescue of a struggling congregation, which wanted to buy a new organ, or square up the preacher’s salary, or raise money for some other purpose. I remember, at Haddam City, I raffled off two large oil paintings, advertised as worth two hundred and fifty dollars. I had used them as drawing cards, placing side by side with them reduced copies, to show the possibilities of our art. On starting the raffle I made the most glowing announcement from the stage. I explained that I had found these works of art too bulky to carry with me from town to town. They were so valuable that it required more care to protect them from injury than we could afford to give.
I proposed that during my stay in the town I would give to each patron a number for every dollar invested, entitling him or her to a chance in a drawing for one of the pictures, which I intended to make on the last night. The other picture I then offered as a prize for a voting contest for the most popular young lady in the city, the proceeds to go to the benefit of the church.
Before making this offer, I had looked over the ground very carefully, and was certain it would yield a success. I found I had not been mistaken. The pictures were really fine ones, costing me fifty dollars at wholesale, but by using them in this way I believe they netted me more than their cost.
The voting contest developed a rivalry I had not anticipated, and not only were the audiences immense, but the dimes rolled by the dozen into the hands of the two young gentlemen that were appointed treasurers of the church.
Our own interests were not forgotten. They seemed about that time to be tangled up with those of the church, and the way we gathered orders, both at the entertainments and in the outside canvass, kept my artist working night and day, and very nearly strained my ability.
In anticipation of the step, I had headed my troupe on the second evening of our stay in the place, which happened to be Sunday, and we all filed into church together. Our exhibitions, while lively and interesting, were all of the most unobjectionable order, and in every way I worked it so that we would seem, as we were, worthy of the support of the best people.
At the outset it seemed a foregone conclusion that a Miss Kitty Kneilson would carry away the palm. She was so far ahead at the close of the second evening of voting that I was afraid interest might slacken and the receipts fall off. The next evening there happened, altogether by chance, something I would never have thought of, and if I had would scarcely have dared to suggest.
Some innocent, scatter-brained, harum-scarum young fellow dropped a vote in the box inscribed with the name of “Claude Maxwell.” When that name was read out there was a roar through the house, and I was afraid there was going to be trouble. Claude Maxwell was a very estimable young gentleman, but he belonged to that class who from their fair appearance, exact dress, and mincing manners are sometimes called dudes. He was bright, big-hearted and full of life, but every one recognized the joke, and there was a clapping of hands, and much laughter, before it was thought how Maxwell might take it.
All doubt on that score was removed by the young gentleman himself, who arose in the seat, somewhere near the front, a smile on his features, and made a profound bow.
With that the game was started. Maxwell had any quantity of friends among the young folks, and they all seemed seized with a sudden desire to “josh” him. The next moment the tellers announced “Ten more votes for Claude Maxwell.” Some one had thrown in a dollar to keep the joke going.
I understood that Miss Kneilson was the more affronted of the two; but as she belonged to the church, and both she and Maxwell were members of the choir, her friends convinced her that nothing better could have happened. Before long she was enjoying the contest as much as anybody.
You cannot imagine the interest and the amount of money that can be drawn into such an affair at times, when the contest grows close and the people are excited. When the musicians played the Marseillaise on the last night there were a few hundred folks worked up to a fever heat, and had it not been announced beforehand that the voting would cease precisely at ten o’clock I have an idea that fifty dollars more might have been taken in that evening. The polls closed precisely on the stroke, and just a moment before a five-dollar bill was slipped in, which secured the picture for Claude Maxwell by a majority of five.
Amid much laughter and cheering Mr. Maxwell arose to his feet and bowed his smiling thanks to the audience.
Not at all abashed by the screams of the audience the young man proceeded to say that while, for the good of the church in which he and the other contestants were so deeply interested, he had been willing for the matter to proceed, yet he had never for a moment actually contemplated appropriating the prize to himself. He therefore took great pleasure in presenting the beautiful work of art to the real choice of the assemblage, Miss Kitty Kneilson.
He sat down amidst thunders of applause.
I had to remain three or four days to complete the orders we had taken, and the treasury of the church was filled to overflowing.