Tales of the Road Part 26

"Sure," said the shoe man. "Who doesn't know that pompous know-it- all?"

"Well, sir, do you know that fellow isn't satisfied with any one he deals with, and he thinks that this whole country belongs to him. He wrote me several seasons ago to come out to see him. He had heard one of the boys speak well of my line of goods. I went to his town and first thing I did was to open up. Then I went into his store and told him I was all ready.

"'Well, I've decided,' said he, 'that I won't buy anything in your line this season.'

"'You will at least come over and give me a look, in that I have come over at your special request, will you not?"

"'NO, no! No is no with me, sir.'

"I couldn't get him over there. He went into his office and closed the door behind him. I had hard lines in the town that season. I went up to see another man and told him the circ.u.mstances but he said, 'No, I don't play any second fiddle,' and do you know, I didn't blame him a bit.

"I had made up my mind to mark this town off my list, but you know, business often comes to us from places where we least expect it. This is one of the things which make road life interesting. How often it happens that you fully believe before you start out that you are going to do business in certain places and how often your best laid plans 'gang aglee!'

"Another man in this town wrote in to the house (this was last season) for me to come to see him. In his letter he said that he was then clerking for Grain and he was going to quit there and start up on his own hook. Somehow or other the old man got on to the fact that his clerk was going to start up and that he had written in for my line. He was just that mean that he wanted to put as many stones in the path of his old clerk as he possibly could, and I don't know whether it was by accident or design that Grain came in here to Spokane the same day that his old clerk did, or not. At any rate, they were here together.

"Just about the time I had finished selling my bill to Grain's clerk, the old man 'phoned up to my room that he would like to see me. This time he was sweet as sugar. I asked him over the 'phone what he wished. He said, 'I'd like to buy some goods from you. 'Don't care to sell you,' I answered over the wire. His old clerk was right there in the room then and he was good, too. He had got together two or three well-to-do farmers in the neighborhood and had organized a big stock company with the capital stock fully paid up. The whole country had become tired of Grain and his methods, and a new man stood a mighty good chance for success--and you know, boys, what a bully good business he has built up.

"'Why, what's the mater?' 'phoned back the old man.

"'Just simply this: that I have sold another man in your town, and I don't care to place my line with more than one,' I answered. 'Who Is it?' said he. I told him.

"'Well, now, look here,' he came back at me. 'That fellow's just a tidbit. He thinks he's going to cut some ice out there, but he won't last long, and, do you know, if you'll just simply chop his bill off, I'll promise to buy right now twice as much as he has bought from you.'

"If there's a man on the road who is contemptible in the eyes of his fellow traveling men, it is the one who will solicit a countermand; and the merchant who will do this sort of a trick is even worse, you know, boys, in our eyes.

"'What do you take me for?' I 'phoned back.

"I'm very glad to have a chance, sir, to give you a dose of your own medicine. You can't run any such a sandy as this on me,' and I hung up the 'phone on him without giving him the satisfaction of talking it out any further. To be sure, I would not go down stairs to look him up.

"Well, that must have pleased the old man's clerk," said one of the boys.

"Sure it did. He touched the b.u.t.ton and made me have a two-bit straight cigar on him."

"You got even with him all right," said one of my hat friends who was in the party; but let me tell you how a merchant down in Arkansas once fixed me and my house."

"Old Benzine?" said the shoeman.

"Sure; that's the fellow. How did you hear about it?"

"Well, my house got it the same way yours did."

"Ah, that fellow was a smooth one," continued the hat man. "He had burned out so often that he had been nicknamed Benzine, but still he had plenty of money and though my house knew he was tricky, they let him work them. I didn't know anything about the old man's reputation when I called on him. He had recently come down into Arkansas--this was when I traveled down there--and opened up a new store in one of my old towns. I didn't have a good customer in the town and in shopping about fell in on Benzine.

"He kicked hard about looking at my goods when I asked him to do so.

He knew how to play his game all right. He knew that I would bring all sorts of persuasions to bear upon him to get him started over to my sample room, and just about the time he thought I was going to quit he said, 'Vell, I look but I vont gif you an orter.' Of course that was all I wished for. When a man on the road can get a merchant to say he will look at his goods, he knows that the merchant wishes to buy from somebody in his line and he feels that he has ninety-nine chances in a hundred of selling him.

"That afternoon Old Benzine came over and he was mean. He tore up the stuff and said it was too high priced, and everything of that kind. He haggled over terms and started to walk out several times. He made his bluff good with me and I thought he was 'giltedge.' Finally, though, I sold him about a thousand dollars. The old man had worked me all right. Now he began to put the hooks into the house.

"The same day that my order reached the house came a letter from Benzine stating that he had looked over his copy and he wished they would cut off half of several items on the bill. Ah, he was shrewd, that old guy. He was working for credit. He knew that if he wrote to have part of his order cut off, the credit man would think he was good. My house couldn't s.h.i.+p the bill to him quickly enough, and they wrote asking him to let the whole bill stand. He was shrewd enough to tell them no, that he didn't wish to get any more goods than he could pay for. That sent his stock with the house a sailing. But the old chap wasn't done with them yet.

"About six weeks before the time for discounting he wrote in and said that as his trade had been very good indeed they could s.h.i.+p additional dozens on all the items that he had cut down to half-dozens, and in this way he ran his bill to over $1,300."

"Well, you got a good one out of him that season, all right."

"Yes--where the chicken got the ax. As soon as Old Benzine had run in all the goods he could, he did the s.h.i.+pping act. He left a lot of empty boxes on his shelves but s.h.i.+pped nearly all of his stock to some of his relatives, and then in came the coal-oil can once more."

"Didn't you get any money out of him at all?" one of the boys asked.

"Money?" said the shoeman. "Did you ever hear of anybody getting money out of Old Benzine unless they got it before the goods were s.h.i.+pped?

If ever there was a steal-omaniac, he was it, sure!"

With this, one of the boys tossed a few crumbs to the gold fish. The turtles, thinking he had made a threatening motion toward them, quietly ducked to the bottom of the pool. The white-capped cook took the turkey from before the fire. The water kept on trickling over the ferns but its sound I soon forgot, as another hat man took up the conversation.

"Most merchants," said he, "are easy to get along with. They have so many troubles thrown upon them that, as a rule, they make as few for us as they can. Once in awhile we strike a merchant who gets smart--"

"But he doesn't win anything by that," observed the clothing man.

"No; you bet not! I used to sell a man down in the valley who tried a trick on me. I had sold him for two seasons and his account was satisfactory. Another man I knew started up in the town and he was willing to buy my goods from me without the brands in them. I remained loyal to my first customer in not selling the new man my branded goods. In fact, about the only difference between a great many lines of goods is the name, as you know, and a different name in a hat makes it a different hat. In all lines of business, just as soon as one firm gets out a popular style, every other one in the country hops right on to it, so it is all nonsense for a salesman not to sell more than one man in a town when the names in the goods are different, and the merchant, when such is the case, has no kick coming on the man who sells one of his compet.i.tors.

"Well, everything was all right until Fergus, customer No. 2, sent in a mail order to the house. They, by mistake (and an inexcusable one-- but what can you expect of underpaid stock boys?) s.h.i.+pped out to him some goods branded the same as those my first customer, Stack, had in his house. Fergus wrote in to me and told me about the mistake. He didn't wish to carry the branded goods any more than the other man wished for him to do so, and asked that some labels be sent him to paste over his boxes.

"I was in the house at the time and sent out several labels to Fergus.

At the same time I wrote to Stack, very frankly telling him of the mistake and saying that I regretted it and all I could say about it was that it was a mistake and that it would not occur again. Instead of taking this in good faith, he immediately came out with a flaming ad:

EVERY MAN IN THE COUNTY Should appreciate the following: _Leopard Hats,_ $2.00.

Sold everywhere for $3.00 and $3.50.

"His goods had really cost him $24 a dozen and he was merely aiming to cut under the other man's throat, but he didn't know how he was sewing himself up. I wrote him:

"'My good friend: I have always believed that you felt kindly toward me, and now I am doubly certain of it. All that I have a right to expect of my best friends is that they will advertise my goods only so long as they keep on carrying them--but you have done me even a greater favor. You are advertising them for the benefit of another customer, although you have quit buying from me. Let me thank you for this especial favor which you do me and should I ever be able to serve you in any way, personally, command me.'

"Well, how did he take that?" I asked.

"Oh, he didn't really see that he was advertising his compet.i.tor, and he came back at me with this letter:

"'Your valued favor of the 3Oth to hand. I a.s.sure you that you owe me no debt of grat.i.tude as I am always glad to be of service to my friends, and under no circ.u.mstances do I wish them to feel under obligations to me. I would be only too glad to sell the Leopards at one dollar each, provided they could be bought at a price lower than that from you. But at present any one can purchase them from me at $2 each, which 'should be appreciated by every man in the county.' With kindest regards, very truly yours.'

"Well, how did you fix him?" said the shoe man.

"Fix him? How did you know I did?"

"Oh, that was too good a chance to overlook."

"You bet it was. When I went into the house a few days afterwards, I picked out some nice clean jobs in Leopards and I socked the knife into the price so that Fergus could sell them at $1.50 apiece and make a good profit. I then sicked him on to Stack and there was merry war.

In the beginning, as I fancied he would, Stack got a man in another town to send in to my house and pay regular price for my goods and he continued to sell them at $2 each. After he had loaded up on them pretty well, my other man began to put them down to $1.75, $1.60, $1.50, and forced my good friend to sell all he had on hand at a loss.

That deal cost him a little bunch."

"There's altogether too much of this throat-cutting business between merchants. The storekeeper who can hold his own temper can generally hold his own trade.