The Golden Censer Part 5

ESTABLISHED BEHIND A COUNTER

in a general store and intrusted with the great secret of a cost-mark, fully as important a secret, let me a.s.sure you, as you can buy in the most secret of places! What spot in your character will "wear down" the quickest? When you were little it was your toes. They were copper-plated. Now the wear falls where copper will not protect you.

Nothing but experience will now serve as the copper did then. The first place that "rubs" will be

YOUR TONGUE.

When you have conquered the natural inclination to be what is familiarly known as a "smarty," there is still a greater wisdom to acquire. Avoid hearing, where it is not absolutely necessary, anything that you will have to keep secret. The less secrets you have the less discretion will be necessary to protect them. After you have heard a thing from your employer, keep it to yourself. The youth who talks about his employer's business must have other marvelous faculties to succeed in life. He is a Blind Tom. He plays the piano, but the wonder is how he does it. It must be that it would hurt your feelings if you heard another merchant say of your employer that he keeps a pretty good boy, except that

HE "BLABS A GOOD DEAL."

If you can shut up your mouth now, you can keep it shut when you get to be Secretary of the Treasury and a whole syndicate of bankers are trying to pump out of you whether you mean to pay off $100,000,000 of 5 per cent bonds the next week, or merely reduce the interest 1-1/2 per cent.

If they could tell, they could make a million dollars, and unless you have been all your life a discreet man, be a.s.sured they _will_ tell. If your employer's rivals in business find out through you where your people get a certain line of goods, how much is paid for it, or

THE TIME ON WHICH IT IS BOUGHT,

be a.s.sured you will never succeed either as a man in business for yourself, or as a worker under the direction of others. Your employer may be embarra.s.sed and the fatal knowledge may have come into your unlucky ears. You will hear it whispered all around you. Why? Because no one knows "for sure." Everybody wants to see if you know anything about it. Can you not see how much luckier you would have been had you really known nothing of the state of things? A word, a look, from you, may turn from your employer just the helping hand that would have carried him across a tight place. How many battles have been won by the arrival, just in time, of a reinforcement! Make it a point that, if you are inclined

TO "BLOW YOUR AFFAIRS,"

you were not cut out for "business." You had better become a lecturer, a farmer, or something else, and occupy a field where industry alone will save all your interests. Remember the miserable barber of King Midas in mythology. The King had been cursed by the offended G.o.d Apollo with a.s.ses' ears. To hide his deformity he had his barber dress the hair over the ears, and the barber was then sworn with an awful oath of secrecy. But the "tonsorial artist" (as they call him in the city!) was one of those people who could not stand the pressure. He went out in the field and dug a little hole, and

INTO THIS HOLE HE BREATHED THE SECRET

that His Majesty had been smitten by Apollo. What was the astonishment of the world at hearing the reeds that grew hard by whispering among themselves, whenever the wind blew them confidentially together, "King Midas hath a.s.ses' ears!"

Be in mortal fear of the first error in this regard. When a boy has made a record for bad, it seems to hang to him. The fact that he has told something which he ought to have kept to himself is quoted against him until it becomes a positive habit to speak about it every time his name is mentioned.

"Jimmie, where's your outside man? I heard he was in town. His cousin asked me to inquire."

"Oh! no! he's not in town. He went out on the road last night. He will be in Eagertown to-morrow, Brightside Wednesday, and Upearly Sat.u.r.day."

That is exactly what was wanted out of you, and you must excuse your questioner if he hurries on, so as not to be seen pumping you any longer than is necessary.

Now this style of gaining information is low and contemptible, but of two boys who talked, one of whom said a good deal that did not amount to much, learning a good deal that did, and the other letting out a great deal and learning nothing, there can be little doubt of the business success of the first as compared to that of the second.

Put a copper-toe on your tongue. Remember that Gen. Grant made a great part of his fame by letting other folks do his talking.

COURTESY.

When my friends are blind of one eye, I look at them in profile.

--Joubert.

There is no outward sign of courtesy that does not rest on a deep moral foundation. If you are always courteous without difficulty, you are endowed with a nature naturally moral. You are naturally a gentleman. Anyhow, you are behind the counter, and you desire to sell goods. You wish to have customers brighten up when they see you. Very well, brighten up yourself. You ought to be glad to see them. If they are not glad, they, perhaps, have less reason for joy.

They are about to part with their money in order to get something they cannot part with so easily. You went to work in the morning hoping a good many people would come in. Now here they are. You can smile on the young lady, but can you smile on the old woman? You can if you are a man. It is nothing but good-breeding to do it. What is this boasted word "good-breeding?" It is "the result of much good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others, and with a view to obtain the same indulgence from them." Chesterfield, a man who was as prominent in England as Daniel Webster in America, expressed his astonishment that anybody who had good sense and good nature could essentially fail in good-breeding.

STUDY YOUR CUSTOMER.

If he or she be brusque, be yourself pliable, respectful, and by all means quick. Do not stand in front of him or her with your head down ready to hook or to b.u.t.t. You are glad the customer has come in. That should solve the whole problem. In the city you are required to "put up with" the bad mannered fas.h.i.+on that people have of treating a clerk as if he were a piece of furniture, but in the town this is all changed. A majority of the citizens know you, and all regard you with better breeding than would the city customer. You are young and positive, because you know very little about life. Curb yourself. Let the customer make all the statements he has to make. He will run out of them presently. In case he want any of yours, he will then ask for them, and literally be at your mercy. As to

YOUR HANDS,

have them very clean. It will be a positive advantage to you to wear no rings. In case the people like jewelry, it distracts their attention from the great idea (a sale); in case they do not like gew-gaws, it will put you in opposition. Make your great effort in the direction you think the customer's mind is taking. Sell him what he thinks he wants first.

So much, sure. Then, if he changes his mind, it will be to your profit, generally. When the customer speaks to you, it gives you your programme.

If he be cheery, imitate him. He is your friend and is giving you an example. If he look hard at you,

LOOK RESPECTFULLY

at him. Serve him with alacrity, say nothing not necessary, and the joy in your heart will thaw him out before long. Express to your customers your desire that they should come again,--never by words, because that is too difficult, except in a barber-shop, where it is a custom--but by opening the door for them at their departure, even if you have to keep another customer waiting, and by thanking them on receipt of the money, or upon delivery of the goods if it be on account. There are very few people who will remain cold toward you after they find out you are really glad to see them. The general store of the rural town makes

THE FINEST-MANNERED MEN IN THE COUNTRY,

respectful, dignified, alert, and unruffled. I saw a clerk at the postal money-order office in St Paul. The Swedes and Poles go there often to send away money. That young man had such a charming way of showing an old Swedish woman just how to make out an order before she had learned to write, and he had such an awe-stricken way of receiving the instructions of other money-senders who knew all about it, that I felt he was a credit to America, and I mention the reminiscence only with diminished pleasure from the fact that I have forgotten the young man's name. Courteous treatment of a customer is necessary under every conceivable circ.u.mstance. It may be a busybody has come in to worry you, who never bought a cent's worth of you or anybody else whom you know; nevertheless her tongue is an advertis.e.m.e.nt. If you can gain her good will, even comparatively, as weighed by her estimate of other clerks, it is better than a column advertis.e.m.e.nt in the local papers. When Zachariah Fox, a great merchant of Liverpool, was asked by what means he contrived to ama.s.s so large a fortune as he possessed, his reply was: "Friend, by one article alone, and in which thou mayest deal too, if thou pleasest,--it is civility." "Hail! ye small sweet courtesies of life, for smooth do ye make the road of it, like grace and beauty, which beget inclinations to love at first sight; it is ye who open the door and let the stranger in."

"We must be as courteous," says

RALPH WALDO EMERSON,

"to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light." There is more natural courtesy in the country than in the city, just as there are more privileges where three clerks are at work than where there are a hundred. And then, again, civility seems to be lacking in the city as well naturally as out of necessity. Milton has put this forcibly by saying "courtesy oft is sooner found in lowly sheds, with smoky rafters, than in tapestry halls and courts of princes, where it first was named." The small courtesies sweeten life. The great ones enn.o.ble it. The extent to which a man can make himself agreeable, as seen in the lives of Swift, Thomas Moore, Chesterfield, Coleridge, Sydney Smith, Aaron Burr, Edgar Poe, and those odd creatures called

"BEAUX," SUCH AS BRUMMEL, NASH, ETC.,

goes to show the immense importance of the art, and its influence in determining the success of any man in business. Good-breeding shows itself the most where to an ordinary eye it appears the least. Says Chesterfield: "How often have I seen the most solid merit and knowledge neglected, unwelcome, and even rejected; while flimsy parts, little knowledge, and less merit, introduced by the Graces, have been received, cherished, and admired." You have seen beautiful swords of auroral flame dart into the zenith; you have seen marvelous flights of meteors, which were gone ere your admiration had given rise to a cry of pleasure. So it is with manners. They irradiate our presence, giving to our a.s.sociates

MOMENTARY VIEWS

of those qualities which are universally loved and respected--gentleness, unselfishness, gladness and peace. Your clothes, while under twenty-five years of age, should be very neat. Your s.h.i.+rt should be clean. This does not imply that you are to break extra backs to keep fresh s.h.i.+rts ready for you, but that you are to make extra efforts to keep the one you have on unsoiled for a decent length of time. If your clothes are dark, get in the habit of wearing a black silk or satin neck-tie and wear it some one way all your life. It helps people to "place" you. Generally a sack coat makes a very tall man look shorter, and a frock-coat looks all the better for a change. The clothes should be loose, so that they will

OCCUPY AS LITTLE OF THE MIND AS POSSIBLE.

The young man who purposely keeps his mind on his fine clothes is lost.

He is a c.o.xcomb. He has no greater influence with the young ladies for all his fine feathers. Let me leave you selling a large bill, remembering that civility costs nothing and buys everything, and feeling that the very perfection of good manners is not to think of yourself.