"Betty was a real comfort" (See page 110)

By HAROLD WHITEHEAD

Author of "The Business Career of Peter Flint"

ILLUSTRATED By JOHN GOSS

THE PAGE COMPANY
BOSTON    PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1918, by
The Page Company

All rights reserved

First Impression, July, 1918
Second Impression, July, 1918
Third Impression, October, 1919

[Pg vii]

A boy, just graduated from high school, was looking over some of his father's business books and magazines. The more he read, the more disappointed he became, until finally he blurted,

"Say, dad, I don't want to be a business man!"

"Why not?" asked his father, with a tolerant smile.

"Aw, there's no fun in business."

"Get that foolish idea out of your head, son. There's nothing I know of that is quite so much fun—as you call it—as business. Where did you get your ideas of business?"

"From them books," said son, emphatically, if ungrammatically. "All they talk about is efficiency, getting results, checking people up, and things of that kind."

Just ask yourself, Friend Reader, if your business reading has not given you an idea that business should be more or less a cold-blooded proposition, and our business life something apart from our home and social relationships.

Unfortunately, many books, excellent in their presentation of principles, ignore the human side, as it were, of business. I believe—nay, I am sure—that the influence of our home life is an important factor in the development of our business career. Our loves, [Pg viii]our dislikes, our jealousies, our unfortunate, yet often lovable, unreasonablenesses are reflected in our business life. Our impetuous business decisions are often made through the subconscious influence of some dear one at home.

Our ambitions.—Are you, Friend Reader, so cold-blooded that you can say your ambition is a selfish one? Honestly now, wasn't it that you want to win something (whatever it may be)? Didn't you want to "make good" just to please some little woman?

When you faltered and weakened in your struggle for success, wasn't it she who gave you the necessary loving sympathy and encouragement to keep everlastingly at it? And wasn't your ambition encouraged a little bit by the delight you knew its attainment would give to that sweet little woman, who thinks "her boy" is just all right? Didn't you want to "make good" so as to please your mother and your father?

I don't care if you are a big, six-foot, bull-necked husky who smokes black cigars and swears, you have to admit the truth of this assertion so far as you are concerned.

Sounds like moralizing, doesn't it? And yet it's God's own truth!

It was convictions such as these which caused me to write "Dawson Black." I wanted to give the world a book which would not be a learned and technical treatise on retail merchandising, but would give a picture of business life as it really is—not as the world mis-sees it.

I have tried to make "Dawson Black" a human being, not an automaton to go through a series of jerky motions to illustrate principles. I wanted him to do some things wrong and suffer for it, and some[Pg ix] things right, and perhaps still suffer a little; but I wanted to make his business life REAL. I wanted the reader to say to himself, "By Jove! I did just that same fool thing myself!"

And, underneath all this, I wanted to present a few of the principles of retail merchandising. I wanted to show that the result of the correct application of principle was sure, and that a principle of retail merchandising is applicable to every kind of retail store—be it the little corner Italian fruit stand, or be it the largest department store in the country; be it hardware, drygoods, drugs, shoes, plumbing, or what not.

This book will have answered its purpose if it encourages you to persevere by showing that the majority of people make the same mistakes that you do,—and inspires you with the nobility of business, and in particular convinces you that you are not working for money, but for the happiness you can give somebody else in addition to yourself.

Harold Whitehead.

[Pg 1]

I hadn't seen Aunt Emma for five years, and, candidly, I had never thought a great deal of her; so you can imagine how surprised I was when a long-whiskered chap blew in at the Mater's to-day and told me that Aunt Emma had died, and—had left me eight thousand dollars in cash and a farm in the Berkshires!

Of course my first thought was to hunt up Betty and get her to help me celebrate!

We had a bully good time! Betty was delighted with my good fortune; but scolded me for not being sorry aunty had died. I suppose I should have pretended I was sorry, although, having met her only twice in my life, she was practically a stranger to me.

I told Betty I thought I'd throw up my job with Barlow—he runs the Main Street Hardware Store—and get a store of my own.

We had quite a talk over it. Betty approved of it and said she was sure I would succeed. She reminded me, though, that I was only twenty-two, and said that if I did buy a store I should get some one to advise[Pg 2] me about it. She's a fine girl, Betty, but of course she knew nothing about business.

The next morning I put an advertisement in the county paper. Fellows, a chap I know who works at the Flaxon Advertising Company—he's some relation to Betty—said I ought to have used a trade paper, but I told him I didn't want to go far from home, and a trade paper would probably bring me answers from Oshkosh and Kankakee and such funny places, and I would simply be paying out good money to get offers from places I didn't want to go to. Not that I wouldn't like to travel, but Betty would . . . well, never mind what Betty would or wouldn't.—There goes the telephone bell. . . .

Isn't it funny! I had just got back from seeing Fellows when I had a telephone call from Jim Simpson. Jim was a young fellow, only a little older than I, who ran a hardware store right here in Farmdale. I used to go to school with him. He called it a hardware store, but his business was confined to kitchen furnishings and household hardware. It seemed he wanted to go out West and offered to sell me his store cheap.

Fancy! Jim Simpson, right here in our town, wanting to sell out, and me wanting to buy a store, and neither of us knowing it! I telephoned to Betty to tell her about it, and she said to be careful, because she didn't like him. Aren't women funny, with their likes and dislikes, without knowing why! Jim was a pretty smart fellow, and while the store wasn't just exactly what I had in mind, he did a fairly good business. I made an appointment with Jim to see him the next day.

[Pg 3]Well I guess a streak of lightning has nothing on me! Before night I was the owner of the Black Hardware Store, for I had bought Jim out and was to take possession the following Monday! I had seen Jim's books and I knew everything was all right. Jim was a good fellow, and he promised to give me all the help and advice that I wanted. He said he'd like to stay in town with me for a few weeks, only he was anxious to go out West right away.

The store had $9460.00 worth of goods, reckoned at cost. Jim agreed to let me have all his fixtures and show-cases, which he said had cost him over a thousand dollars, and good-will, for $540.00, making the cost of the store to me $10,000.00.

When Jim told me the cost would be $10,000.00 I was considerably disappointed, for I had only $8000.00 besides the farm. I told Jim the farm was worth, I thought, about $8500.00, but I couldn't sell that right away and, of course, I couldn't pay out all my ready cash, because I wouldn't have anything left for operating expenses.

Jim was pretty decent about it, and said:

"You give me $7000.00 in cash and a mortgage on the farm and I'll give you a year to pay the balance. With the big profit you can make in this store, you'll be able to pay that $3000.00 in no time at all. Besides, if you couldn't quite manage it in a year, I'd renew it, of course."

But I thought I ought to have more than $1000.00 left, and finally it was agreed that I should give him $6500.00 in cash and a mortgage on the farm for $3500.00

I had my $8000.00 deposited in the Farmdale Trust[Pg 4] Company, so we went over there and I gave him a check for the $6500.00. I thought I ought to do well with $1500.00 besides that splendid store of goods.

Jim had started out to be a lawyer and had studied law for a while, and he said he would draw up the mortgage himself so there wouldn't be any delay about it. I brought him over some legal-looking papers I had from Aunt Emma's estate—deeds, he called them—and we fixed that up without any trouble.

I asked Jim if we ought not to take stock together, and he said, "Sure, if you want to;" but I found that he had an exact stock-keeping system, and Jim suggested that we pick out about a dozen items and just check those up—"for," said he, "what's the use of checking up fifty cents' worth of this and thirty cents' worth of that? Your time is too valuable for that."

I agreed with him, for I couldn't afford to waste my time now that I was the owner of a store.

Betty asked me that night if I had had a lawyer to go over the thing with me, but I laughed at her and said, "I don't want a lawyer for a little deal like this between Jim and me." I told her it would have been almost an insult to have suggested that I wanted a lawyer. She shook her head sadly and said something about a man who was his own lawyer having a fool for a client—which I thought was not at all called for!

Before going to bed, I figured out what the store should be worth to me. Jim had told me he turned over his stock about three times a year, and that he made about 10 per cent. clear profit. Three times $9460.00 would be $28,380.00; and if he made 10 per cent., clear profit, that would be $2838.00 a year[Pg 5]—call it $3000.00 a year. That was $60.00 a week! Gee!—some jump from what I was getting at Barlow's! I thought how easy it was to make money when you had some to start with! Here I had been working my head off for a year and a half and getting only $10.00 a week, and now I would be making $60.00. I decided to ask Betty to—oh, well, I'd wait a month or two until I saw if it worked out just like that. Better be on the safe side!

[Pg 6]

Mother had a talk with me about the store, in the morning and asked me to try to get my money back from Jim. She said she had never liked Jim, and that he was a bit careless in his transactions. When mother said anybody was careless in their transactions, she meant he was a crook, but I knew Jim better than that, and I told her so. Mother said she didn't want me to lose my money as soon as I'd got it.

I was all the Mater had, for Dad had died a few years before. Fortunately, his life was well insured and mother had enough to live on. I told her I was a young progressive, but I was not taking any chances with anything that affected her, so there was no need for her to worry.

I told Barlow that I'd have to leave him that day because I had bought out Jim Simpson's store and was to start in on the following Monday. He looked at me for a minute, and said:

"Have you paid him for it yet?"

"Yes, sir," I said.

"I suppose Jim's going out West, isn't he?"

"Yes, sir," I said again.

He paused again, and then he said:

"Well, look here, son, you've always been a good worker with me. You still have a lot to learn, however, because you wasted your evenings instead of[Pg 7] doing some studying, but I'd like to see you 'make good' and I'll help you all I can."

I was surprised at this, and I said:

"But, Mr. Barlow, we'll be competitors then!"

I began to like Barlow very much then, for he put his hand on my shoulder, and said:

"Look here, son, can't we be competitors and yet be friends! Remember, I have a store several times larger than the one you are going into, so it is you who will have to compete with me, not I with you."

That was a new thought to me all right.

"We can be friends, even if we are competitors, you know," Mr. Barlow continued, "and if you get into any kind of trouble, come around and see me and I'll do what I can to help you."

I was sure he meant it, too. And all the time I had thought that Barlow was a "has been." What a different slant you seem to get on people as soon as you get up to their position! I suppose it's just like climbing a mountain; if you want to see the view the other fellow sees, you have to get up to the same height which he has surmounted.

I had an interesting chat with Jim that day. I went to the store and he had marked about twenty items on his stock book, which he said was a perpetual inventory. He passed the book over to me, and said, "I've marked a couple of dozen items which you can look over. I've picked out some of the things that run into a lot of money, because those are the things you are most careful about, aren't they?—and I didn't think you'd want to waste your time over a lot of trivial things."

I checked those up with him and in one case I found[Pg 8] there was even more stock than Jim said. I laughed and said, "I got you there, Jim! This wonderful perpetual inventory isn't perfect, after all!"

"Well, of course," he replied, "there might be a fraction of a difference here and there, but in the main it's bound to be correct." He continued, with a bit of a grin, "If you're a little short in one thing, you'll find a little bit over on another; and anyhow, you've got your fixtures for half of what they're worth, to allow for any little discrepancy that may crop up."

He showed me how the cash register worked and how to total up the week's sales. I saw the previous week's figures were $311.28. I wondered at that, and said:

"Why, Jim, if you sell $28,000.00 worth a year, you should have about $560.00 worth of sales a week!"

"Oh," he replied, "don't you know this is the quiet time for kitchen goods? You've got to expect some quiet time, you know. In one respect it's a good time for you to take the store over, for you'll have time enough to get yourself fully familiar with the store."

"You know, Dawson," he went on, "if you were to take over this store about September or October, when you're simply rushed to death with business, it might easily put you on your back. You might lose a tremendous lot of business just because it came too quick for you to handle, whereas, buying the store when the business is quiet will give you a chance to learn how to handle it."

I decided that, as soon as possible, I would go over my stock carefully and rearrange it and if I should[Pg 9] happen to find any dead stock I'd have a sale and clean it out and buy a lot of new stock; and, believe me, I'd give old Barlow the biggest run for his money he ever had!

[Pg 10]

I used to think that old Barlow had an easy time as boss of my former store, but the first day, there seemed to be so many things to do, so many things to decide, that my head was in a whirl.

I intended to begin a thorough stock-taking, but hadn't a chance to touch it—so many things cropped up.

I had a row with one of the help, a fellow named Larsen. Larsen had been at the store for over thirty years. He was there before Jim Simpson got it and he was with two of the proprietors before that. He told me he wanted his last two weeks' pay. When I asked him what he meant, he said that Jim had told him to ask me for it, as he had arranged with me to pay it.

I didn't believe him. Jim wouldn't do anything like that, I was sure, and I told Larsen that in so many words. He asked me if I thought he was a liar. I told him he knew that better than I did. I told him if he didn't know how to speak to his superiors, he could just pack his things and go, and I would have him know that I was boss there. Larsen shrugged his shoulders and said:

"You go with me and see Simpson before he runs away. You ask him whether I lie or not. I don't[Pg 11] insult you. I simply tell you what I know. You call me a crook! If you were an older man you would know better. I've been here thirty years. No one has ever questioned me. My word is as good as his."

To please him I said we would go and see Jim the next day at his home. I couldn't go that night, for I was too busy. Jim called in at the store for a few minutes in the morning, and said he expected to be around for a few days in case I wanted to see him about anything.

I told Betty that evening about the dispute with Larsen, and to my surprise she sided with him. It looked as if Betty and mother had got up a conspiracy to disagree with everything I did! Still, thought I, "what do women know of business?"

I thought Betty was right in one thing, however, when she said to me:

"Did Mr. Barlow ever speak to you about knowing your place?"

"Why, no," I said.

"I'll tell you why, boy. You see, he knows he's boss, and everybody else knows it, and he knows that if he is to get the best out of his people he has got to get them to work with him and not for him. The way you treated Larsen will tend to make him merely work for you and not for the interests of the business. He will simply use you as a makeshift until he can get something else. If you want to get the very best out of the people who work for you, you have got to take a real interest in them, and treat them with the same courtesy that you want to be treated with."

[Pg 12]I was just going to tell her that I couldn't be the boss there unless I made them keep their place, but she held up her hand and said:

"Wait a minute, boy. I'm a year younger than you, but I'm older than you in many respects. You are only a big boy and you want some one to look after you." She blushed a little as she said this. "You are impetuous. You say things which you don't mean. You speak so sharply at times that people misunderstand your naturally kind disposition and think that you are fault-finding. And then you are really so conceited that you hate to admit you are wrong, with the result that you leave people with a wrong impression of you. Do you remember that saying about the man who conquers himself being greater than he who masters a city? You should learn to think a little more carefully about what you say before you say it. Remember that you can say something sharp to the help and then forget it the next minute; but they won't forget it. They will think it over and it will rankle and they will feel spiteful toward you, and they'll do something to 'get even' with you."

I hated to admit it, but I had got a hunch that Betty was very nearly right. I decided I would try to control my tongue a little more, and would remember that the people who worked for me would do better work for me if they liked and respected me.

The next morning, I went around with Larsen, as I had promised him, to see Jim Simpson, and found that he had gone. He had left a note for me saying that he found he had an opportunity to get away and that he would write me his address in a few days.

Larsen saw me twisting his note in my fingers while[Pg 13] I was thinking about it there, and he came over and said:

"Can I see that note, Boss?"

I passed it to him. He read it, shook his head, and said:

"Guess you believe me now, don't you, Mr. Black?"

I nodded. That's all I could do.

He shrugged his shoulders and said:

"Well, two weeks' money don't hurt me very much. I hope, Boss, he hasn't stung you."

I went cold at the thought of it. I didn't think it could be true, but, when I came to think it over, I realized that I had taken his word for almost everything.

I went home and told mother and Betty about it, and they advised me to get in touch with Mr. Barlow at once. I said I wouldn't do that—I wasn't going to leave a man and then two or three days afterwards run to him for help. I thought of Fellows of the Flaxon Advertising Company. I telephoned his house and, fortunately, caught him, and he came right around to see me.

He asked me if I had had a lawyer draw up the agreement. I told him "no." He asked me if I had had an inventory made before buying the store. I told him "no." He asked me if I had verified the profits of the business for the last two years. I told him "no." He asked me if I had had the books audited at all. I told him "no."

"Good God, lad," he said, "what have you done, anyhow?"

And then I acted like a fool. I burst out crying and told him that what I had done had been to make[Pg 14] an ass of myself and to give Jim Simpson $6500.00.

He thought a minute and said:

"Well, I should think the store would be worth very nearly that, from what I know of it. It may not be so bad, after all."

But, when I told him that I had also given Jim a note for $3500.00 he persuaded me to go to see a lawyer in the morning, and promised that he would telephone to Boston to arrange with a jobber whom he knew and from whom I knew Jim Simpson bought goods, to send some one over to help me take an inventory.

[Pg 15]

I spent a wretched night wondering if Jim, after all, would play such a dirty trick as to rob an old schoolmate.

Fellows telephoned me from his office and said that if I would come there, the lawyer was there and we could all talk the matter over together.

In ten minutes I knew the truth, I learned that the transfer was made properly to me and that I was responsible for that $3500.00, and, according to the deed of transfer which Jim gave me, the note for $3500.00 was payable on demand.

I told Barrington, the lawyer, that I'd swear the note was payable one year after date. He asked me, "Are you sure?"—and if he hadn't asked me that I would have been, but as it was I was wondering which it was. He asked me again, "Are you sure it isn't a payable-on-demand note?" I didn't know, and I didn't know Jim's address!

Barrington then said that the best thing to do was to get an inventory made as quickly as possible, and then try to get hold of Simpson and see if we couldn't adjust it with him.

"But," he said—and he looked at me very sternly—"if anything is done it will be purely because of his generosity or because of the fear we can instill into him. You are legally responsible for the $3500.00[Pg 16] and apparently it is payable on demand. How much is the farm worth on which you gave him a mortgage?"

I told him it was worth about $8,500.00.

"Hum," he said, and pursed his lips.

"Couldn't I deed it to Mother or somebody," I said, "and save it?"

He shook his head. "No, that wouldn't be legal," he said.

"How I wish I had come to you at first!" I said.

"Yes," he replied absentmindedly, "that's the trouble with many so-called business men. They never think of using a lawyer to keep them out of trouble, but come to them only after they have got into it!"

A salesman from Bates & Hotchkin came in the afternoon and said his firm had told him about my wanting an inventory taken and offered to stay with me till it was done.

"What will it cost?" I asked. My $1500.00 began to look very small to me then.

He smiled and shook his head, and said:

"It won't cost you anything. If we can be of service to you, we want to be."

I had also arranged for an accountant to go over the books. He was a Scotchman, named Jock McTavish, and he was to come the next morning.

Betty urged me to have him install a proper accounting system for me while he was on the job. I shook my head and said:

"There may not be anything worth putting an accounting system in for. I've ruined my life and I've spoiled my chances of your—"

[Pg 17]She put her hand over my mouth and said:

"Don't be silly! Now is the time to see if you have any manhood in you. Anybody can talk big when everything goes right! No one ever made a success without having some failure. Don't you remember what Lord Beaconsfield said, when he was asked how he attained success?"

I shook my head gloomily.

"He said, 'By using my failures as stepping stones to success!'"

"Well," said I, "I've certainly one big stepping stone here."

"Quite right," said she, "then step up it like a man!"

A girl like Betty, I thought, was worth bucking up for! I just set my teeth and decided I would pull through the thing somehow!

I thought the worst had happened, but I found it hadn't. Herson, the salesman from Bates & Hotchkin, completed the inventory, the next day, with the assistance of the others in the store. I can't say I did much to help, for I was simply consumed with anxiety. All I did was to serve customers while it was going on, and that helped to keep me from worrying too much.

Herson came over to me when he finished the inventory and said:

"I'm afraid you are going to be sadly disappointed at the figures. I have put the goods in at their present valuation, as near as I can figure it, and I find that there are $8,100.00 worth."

"Then," said I, "I have lost over a thousand dollars on that stock—$1,360.00!"

[Pg 18]"You surely have," said he.

"Well," I thought, "even so, there's a chance of recovering, and Betty is looking to me to make good and I must!"

But there was worse to come! McTavish, the accountant, found that the average sales for the last two years were only $22,000.00 in round figures, and I had estimated at $28,000.00.

"My," I said to him, "that will bring the profits down to about $40.00 a week!"

"No," he replied, "they'll no be mooch over half o' that."

"Why?" I asked in amazement.

"Because," said he, "you based your estimate of pr-rofits on the percentage of expense. Therefore, Meester Black, the less your sales are, the gr-reater becomes the percentage of expense."

I didn't quite follow this, but he continued:

"Ye should set a dead-line of expense and departmentize your costs."

I looked quite mystified by this, and he explained:

"Do ye noo compr-rehend? I mean ye should have only a certain percentage of expense for rent, salaries, advertising and se-emilar items, and then plan your expenses not to exceed these percentages."

"I see," said I. "Will you help me with that?"

"I surely will. I can give the matter some attention in aboot a week," said he.

"Then," said I, "so far as you can see, the business, instead of showing me a profit of about $60.00 a week, will show me only a profit of about $25.00."

"Just aboot that," he replied. "Indeed, it will approximate somewhat less. There is one other matter,[Pg 19] Mr. Black, I would suggest you do at once, and that is, let me see the agreement you had wi' that mon, Simpson."

"That's at Barrington's," I said.

"Well, can we no get hold of Barrington noo?"

"Surely. I'll introduce you to him."

"Don't fash yoursel'," said he with a smile, "that'll no be necessary, for he was in the store while ye were at yer lunch to-day and I had a convarsation with him."

"What's the trouble, then?" I asked.

"Merely this," said he, and he put his arm on my shoulder very kindly. "That mon, Simpson, left $527.00 worth of accounts which he did no pay and I believe by the agreement ye made wi' him that ye're liable for them."

I was too thunderstruck to say anything! What a hash I had made of my first week's business! So far as I could see, I had given up a good job for one with very little more real money, but a lot of care and worry; I had been robbed of about $1,300.00 in stock and $500.00 in unexpected liabilities. My first week's business, then, showed me a loss of nearly $2,000.00! I began to think I was not so all-fired clever as I thought I was!

Betty was a little brick! When I told her all about it, she said:

"Well, I don't see anything so very dreadful in that. If you have it in you to make a business man, you can soon increase the sales of the store so that you will be making all you thought you would, and perhaps it won't hurt you to lose a little money at the beginning. Even now, you are much better off than a great many[Pg 20] other people are. If only Simpson doesn't demand his $3,500.00 at once, so that you don't lose the farm"—I shivered at the thought—"you'll pull through all right."

When I figured up the sales at the end of the week there was nothing like the $560.00 that I was figuring on. It was only $281.15. I had more respect then for proprietors of retail stores than I had a week before! I hoped that next week I would have that division of expense worked out so that I could know just what my expenses were going to be.

[Pg 21]

On the following Monday, I was in the store, feeling kind of blue over the general muddle I had made of things, when who should go by but Betty and Stigler! If there was one man in the town I disliked, it was Stigler. He was one of those narrow-faced individuals who goes around with a perpetual sneer. I never heard of him saying or doing anything good to any one. It was said of him that he was so mean that he grew a wart on the back of his neck to save buying a collar button!

Stigler was in love with Betty. I didn't blame him for that; but what she could see in a fellow like him got me! I was jealous—I know I was jealous, and I told Betty so when she accused me of it that night.

"Dawson," she said, "you act like a jealous, spoiled child."

And then the love, that had been growing in my heart, became too great to contain.

"Betty," I cried hotly, "you know how much I love you! Do you wonder that I'm jealous, when I see you with that man?"

"And why shouldn't I be with him?" she said archly.

"Well, you can't be with him any more," I said.

"Hoity-toity! and who are you to tell me whom I shall or shall not go with?"

Her words were discouraging, but something in her eyes[Pg 22]. . . .

Something had happened to the town when I left Betty's house. The hard pavements were gone, and instead of them were beautiful silvery clouds. The ordinary air had changed into exhilarating ether. I wanted to sing; I wanted to tell people of my good fortune; but everybody must have known it to have looked at me. I kept saying to myself, "I'm engaged to be married! I'm engaged to be married!" When the teams went by they went "Click clackety click!—click clackety click!—I'm engaged to be married!—I'm engaged to be married!"

Mother had gone to bed when I got home, but I woke her up and told her the good news. I expected her to be surprised, but she wasn't a bit. All she said was: "Well, everybody knew it but you!"

I suppose it is because Love is blind that I didn't know. I told mother that we were going to be married on the 19th of June.

"Do you think it wise to get married so soon?"

"Yes, indeed," I said, "I need the help of a woman like Betty in my business. You see, mother, her business experience and her—"

Mother kissed me on the lips and said:

"Don't bother to think up any excuses—Love itself is sufficient excuse for that."

I saw some tears in mother's eyes. I put my arm around her waist and said:

"You are happy, aren't you, mother, dear?"

She kissed me again and pushed me from her, and hurried to her room. When she got to the door she turned around and said, "God bless you, my boy."

Believe me, I had some mother.

[Pg 23]

On Tuesday I received a request for "immediate payment" of a demand note for $3,500.00, through some shyster lawyer in New York.

I took it up to Barrington and asked him what to do about it. He gave me a paper to sign, and I put my name to it without bothering to read it. He then spoke sharply to me, and said:

"For heaven's sake, lad, haven't you learned better than to sign your name to a paper without reading it?"

"B-but," I said, stammering, "it's different with you!"

"Different be damned!" he exclaimed petulantly. Then, "Excuse me, young man, but really, for a man in business you are acting very childishly. You thought Jim Simpson was your friend and trusted him. Now, even after the mess you got into, you haven't learned your lesson, and you sign anything I ask you to, without looking at it!"

I read it through, and it was something about giving him full power to act for me in the matter of the note.

"Now," said he, "this is going to cost you some money"—I winced at this—"but I'll see if I can't save you something."

He got the New York lawyer on the long distance and offered him a thousand dollars cash in full settle[Pg 24]ment of the claim, or else threatened to contest the legality of the note. The upshot of it was that Barrington made a trip to New York to see him, and they compromised on $1,250.00.

When Barrington returned from New York he came around to the house to see me.

"Well," he said, "I think I've saved you some money this time. I've settled that claim for $1,250.00 cash, which I have paid."

He gave me also the bill of expenses which he had incurred. I put the figures on a bit of paper and twisted it nervously, wondering how I was going to pay that sum of money; for I remembered I had only $1,500.00 in the bank, and I had those bills to pay that Jim left behind and which I had unknowingly agreed to assume. Barrington and the accountant between them compromised on those, by the way, at seventy-five cents on the dollar, but there was nearly $400.00 to pay there, and if I paid that $1,250.00 with the expenses it would wipe out my bank account completely.

Barrington looked at me quizzically, and asked:

"What's worrying you now, young man?"

I told him. He laughed, and then remarked:

"That needn't worry you at all. You have your farm clear now and I'll take a mortgage on it for $1,500.00, and that will enable you to pay this bill up right away and still hold your farm. I was just looking for an investment of about that size. You are no worse off than before, and I will simply have a lien on the farm for $1,500.00 instead of Simpson having one for $3,500.00; and really, in this case, I think you will be much safer."

The next morning we fixed up the mortgage.

[Pg 25]I hoped then that I was through with the troubles of getting the business from Simpson. But when I reviewed what it had cost me I wondered why I ever gave up my safe, easy job with Barlow! I think the trouble with me was that I didn't realize that, while I wasn't making much money, I certainly wasn't taking any risk and was learning a good business. I realized then how stupidly I used to fool away a lot of time that I was paid for. When I thought of the hours I often shirked and the jobs I used to leave undone, I wondered that Barlow didn't fire me and the other fellows long ago. I wondered if other bosses had just the same trouble? I wondered if I was just an average store clerk?

What a different view you take of things when you become a boss yourself! Already I felt that the people working for me should consider my interests, and not hesitate to work hard for me; and yet when I was a clerk only two weeks before I used to begrudge doing the least thing more than my bare duties called for, and I had always felt I ought to get an immediate cash return for anything extra I did. For the first time I realized that I used to panhandle along through the week just working for the pay envelope without much thought of Barlow's welfare at all.

Well, I had surely learned a lesson. I was a wiser man than I had been two weeks before. In that brief time more things had happened to me than had ever happened before, I guess. I had inherited $8,000.00 cash and a farm worth $8,500.00; I had bought out Jim Simpson, and then found only $8,100.00 worth of stock when I thought I was getting $9,460.00; I had given him a demand note for $3,500.00 which I[Pg 26] thought was for twelve months; I had assumed over $400.00 worth of bills of which I didn't know anything at all; and, finally, I had found that the business amounted to only $22,000.00 a year instead of $28,000.00.

I was reciting this tale of woe to Betty when she remarked:

"Well, you can't do anything else wrong just yet, can you?"

"I don't know," I declared. "It seems to me that I can't do anything right!"

I promised Betty to follow the accountant's advice and set a deadline of expenses.

He and I had worked that out. It seemed that my expenses were far too high for the business I was doing. Said he:

"Ye are doing noo only aboot $22,000.00 a year. Ye hae a stock of approximately $8,000.00, and ye really should be doing $42,000.00 a year wi' it."

"How do you figure that out?" I asked.

"That's on the tur-rn-over."

"Turn-over?"

"Yes, ye ought to tur-rn over your investment in goods three and a half times a year—that is, ye ought to sell out your $8,000.00 stock that number of times; and as ye plan to add aboot 50 per cent. for the pr-rofit, ye should sell aboot $42,000.00 worth of goods within the peeriod of a year."

"And I am selling only $22,000.00? Then you mean to say that I am selling only about half as much hardware as I ought to with my present stock?"

"That statement of yours is just aboot correct," said he with a nod.

[Pg 27]"Wait a minute!" I cried excitedly. "You've made a mistake. I don't make 50 per cent. profit. I make only 33 1-3 per cent., all around!"

"Ye mean," he declared quietly, "that ye make only 33 1-3 per cent. on sales. To get that percentage ye hae to add 50 per cent. onto your cost. Your percentage of profit on sales is verra deefferent frae your percentage o' profit on cost. Bide a wee," said he, and he did some rapid figuring on a slip of paper. "This will perhaps make it clearer to ye," and he handed it to me.

I never realized, until he worked it out, just the difference between profit on cost and profit on sales. Here it is:

I thought the whole thing over carefully, and it seemed to me that what I had to do was, first of all, to analyze my stock and see if there were any items in which I was too heavily stocked, and if so to reduce that stock as soon as possible, and then put the money realized in other goods that would turn over quickly. I could see that that would increase the entire stock turn-over, at the same time increasing total sales by substituting new, fast-turning, stock for the excess[Pg 28] stock in the lines I then had, and this would mean reducing my percentage of expense.

The accountant had remarked that increasing the turn-over was the big secret of meeting rising costs, and I would see that he was right. My head was in a whirl with percentages, costs, selling prices, gross and net profits, turn-over, increased cost of goods, higher prices of labor and a lot of other things going through it like a merry-go-round.

I decided that the next step was to arrange a definite system of keeping track of expenses. I would divide the expenses into different classes and see that no single class of expense exceeded a certain limit which I would set for it.

Next, I would build up a logical advertising campaign. Talking with Fellows had converted me to the value of advertising. I had asked him if there was ever a time when a man could afford to stop advertising. He replied, "Yep, a man can afford to stop advertising when he can afford to be forgotten!"

Then I would find some way of getting my help—I had five people at the time—to work better for me than they seemed to have been doing. They seemed to look upon me as a joke. I didn't know that I could blame them, for I certainly felt like several kinds of joke myself.

The accountant on looking over my expenses had thought that my salary roll was too high. I told him that in that case I would cut salaries all round. His reply was, "I wouldna do that if I were ye. A more deesirable plan would be to see if ye canna adjust your affairs to give them more money"—I gasped at this—"and reduce the number o' your employees."

[Pg 29]I hope I never have to go through another two weeks like the first two after I bought the store. I was only a boy when Aunt Emma died and left me the money, but I think I grew up quickly—at least Betty said so. She thought it did me good.

When she told me that, I cried with amazement:

"Doing me good?—to lose all that money in two weeks!"

"Yes, indeed," she declared, "you're just beginning to realize that you've a lot to learn, and you're much nicer to be with than you were before." She gave a funny little smile, as she continued, "You know, boy, you were awfully conceited—you're awfully conceited now; but I'm glad to notice that you're not so dead sure of everything as you used to be!"

"Betty!" said I . . . But what happened then is nobody's business but mine—and Betty's.

[Pg 30]

Our total sales for the second week were $401.75, over a hundred dollars better than the previous week. Nothing like the $560.00 a week that Jim Simpson had led me to believe the store was doing, but not so bad as it might be.

There was one thing I wished, however, and that was that we had a larger cash trade. Out of the $400.00 business we did the second week, $160.00 was charged.

I found out that Jim Simpson had had a whole lot of book debts owing him; but, instead of turning them over to me at a discount, as the accountant told me he should have done, he had collected what bills he could, and then gave the others receipts in full for whatever they could pay.

I didn't know how much he got this way, but old Peter Bender, the carpenter, had come in for some goods, $18.75 worth, charged, and had told Larsen that Jim had gone to him just before he left town and had given him a "clear bill of health," as he called it, for $10.00, in settlement of his account of sixty odd dollars.

I told Larsen, whom I called the manager, that we must cut down the charge business and build up the cash trade. Larsen shrugged his shoulders and said,[Pg 31] "It's up to you, Boss." Larsen hadn't seemed to warm up to me at all after that scrap over the two weeks' pay that Jim did him out of, even after I had told him that I would consider him manager under me. . . .

At the beginning of the third week I put in three days of the hardest work I ever did in my life. I suppose my help thought I had a cinch because I had been working out a division of expenses with the aid of the accountant! I know when I was at Barlow's we clerks used to grumble because we did all the work while old Barley Water, as we called him, used to spend so much time in his little office. I wished I could make my help understand that I was working for them as well as myself, but I guessed it was hopeless, so I didn't try—then.

Well, this is how we divided expenses. The accountant said:

"Let us feegure our plans for the coming year on the assumption that ye'll do $30,000.00 worth o' beesiness. That is an increase of more than $7,000.00, but this store ought to do much more than that.

"Your total expenses should be aboot twenty per cent. of sales, or a total of $6,000.00."

"What are they at present?" I asked, rather shamefacedly, for I felt I ought to know such an important thing as that.

The accountant perceived my look and he squeezed my arm sympathetically, as he said:

"Dinna worry aboot that, laddie. Ye're noo worse off than a lot o' others I ken in that respect. Not half the dealers in the country have an analysis o' their expenses."

[Pg 32]That accountant was a brick.

Well, the accountant told me that my present expenses were, in round figures, $7,000.00.

"Gee! that's fierce!" I said. "Have I got to cut down expenses $1,000.00?"

"That's just aboot what ye hae to do," was the grave reply.

"But how?" I said, perplexed. "I can't possibly do it."

"Can't?" he said, and raised his eyebrows. "Did you no ever hear aboot the rabbit and the bull pup?"

"No. Shoot!"

"It's verra short," he laughed. "A rabbit was one day chased by a vicious dog. He ran as har-rd as he could, but the dog had nearly caught up to him, so, to escape, he ran up a tree."

"But a rabbit can't climb a tree!" I exclaimed.

"Not generally," was the response, "but this rabbit had to!"

How some silly little thing like that makes you think! It was some time before the silence was broken. Then I said:

"Well, how do we do it?"

"This diveesion of expenses will help ye," he said with a smile, and passed over this paper.

Division of Expenses Based on Estimate of 20 Per Cent. on Gross Sales of $30,000

[Pg 33]I looked the schedule over.

"Then my expenses," I said, "are $1,440.00 more than they should be?"

He nodded. "And dinna forget," he added, "that these figures are based on $30,000.00 worth o' business. This means that ye maun increase your sales aboot $7,000.00 during the year. Unless ye do, the percentage cost o' doing business is going to be conseederably higher than twenty per cent. Unless ye can increase your business ye'll hae to decrease your expenses even more than $1,440.00."

"Well," I remarked grimly, "bring out the axe. How are we going to cut it down?"

"That's the brave spirit!" Jock replied. Did I tell you, that Jock McTavish was a Scotchman? Well, he was—very much so. Perhaps that's what made him such a good accountant.

"Noo I know ye mean business," he said, "and noo we hae the facts to wor-rk on. There are numerous businesses ruined every year because o' the lack o' moral courage on the part of their owners to face facts and cut their cloth accordin' tae their means. Let's start wi' salaries. What are they noo?"

"Let me see," I mused. "I think they are—"

"Never mind," he said brusquely, "I ken. Get into[Pg 34] the habit o' kennin', laddie. Ye'll never guess your way to success. Here are the figures:

"I really think ye are no' justified in giving yourself $30.00 a week," he continued. "Twenty dollars would be nearer correct. However, compromise and for the time being mak' it $25.00.

"You really should'na need five people in the store the noo, for, of course, you intend to work har-rd, don't ye?"

I nodded.

"Well, deesmiss either Jones or Myricks. But, give the laddie say three weeks or a month to find another posseetion. It's best to let help go in such a way that they will feel that ye hae no done them an injustice. Tell him frankly why ye do it, and he'll comprehend all right."

"Won't the other fellows kick at having to do more work?" I asked.

"Aye, probably, but tell them that it's only until the business is on its feet and then ye'll do better for them."

"Very well, so much for salaries. What about rent? I can't cut that down, can I?"

"No, that's an item ye canna reduce unless the landlord will give it, so leave that for the time being.

[Pg 35]"Taxes and insurance ye had also better leave as they are at present."

"I have placed advertising at $300.00, I said."

"Ye can reduce that, of course, and ye can save something there."

"No, sir!" I exclaimed. "That's one item I certainly will not cut a penny!"

My firmness so surprised him that he said never a word more about it, but went on to the next item.

"General expenses," he commented. "These are 'way too high. Ye'll doobtless find waste rampant among your help and will hae to adopt stringent measures to prevent it. Most retail stores are neglectful o' this item—they're careless and waste and misuse supplies. They no' seem to consider what kind of twine, paper, and such things are best and most economical for their particular needs, but buy in a haphazard manner whatever is offered tae them. Ye want to exercise the same care in buying supplies that ye do in buying goods."

"All right," I said. "We'll make a drive at that item of expense and try to put it where it belongs."

"Deleevery expenses," continued Jock, "are lighter in this town than the general average. Ye'll probably save something here, but if ye cultivate the better class trade, which that mon Simpson did'na do, the present low delivery cost will rise.

"'Depreciation.' This item depends on yourself, how ye buy and how ye keep the stock.

"Heat and light expenses are verra low at preesent, but the store looks glower an' gloomy after dusk. Ye may want to improve that. People will always gravitate to the well-lighted shop.

[Pg 36]"And bad debts," he concluded, pursing his lips—"that's an item ye'll hae to watch carefully. I should advise ye tae ha' some deefinite system of giving credit and some plan of encouraging cash business. At present your charrge sales are far too numerous for your pocketbook to carry."

Well, that's the gist of what was said. The upshot was that I determined to keep each item as near the estimate as possible, and (this was Betty's suggestion) if any one item proved to be less than the estimate, this should be saved and not spent to help some other lame dog of expense over the stile.

[Pg 37]

Barlow sent a copy of Hardware Times over to me, in which he had marked an item about the State Convention the next week. I showed it to Betty and remarked:

"Of course I can't afford to go, because it comes the same day as we get married, and you remember, Betty, we agreed that we would not have our honeymoon until we had 'turned the corner'."

But to my surprise, she urged me to go. She said I might learn a whole lot there by meeting other hardware men and the new ideas I would get would help me very much under present conditions. So Betty and I decided to go to the Convention—and also make it our honeymoon. I telephoned Barlow and thanked him for sending the notice to me.

The salary adjustment I left until I should return. Even Jock agreed to that.

It was mighty nice of Barlow to send me that notice—and he a competitor of mine—or rather, I was a competitor of his, I guess!

Thirteen may be an unlucky number for some folks, but it sure was the lucky day for me, for on that day Betty and I were married. It was a quiet little home wedding. No one was there but mother, the two girls, and a cousin of Betty's from Hartford. Everything went off splendidly.

[Pg 38]We went on the 12:30 train. Barlow went ahead of us on the 9:30. I extracted a promise from him before he left that he wouldn't tell anybody that we were just married, because if they did know they would tease the life out of us. He never let it out, and Betty and I had the time of our lives.

The only incident that marred the day for us happened at the station. We got there ten minutes before train time, and who was there, leaning against the newsstand, but Stigler. He made no attempt to come near us, but raised his hat and said in a loud, harsh voice, "Well, Mrs. Betty Black, so you've been and got married after all! I wish yer luck of your bargain!" He looked me up and down, turned his head, spat contemptuously on the floor, and stalked out of the station.

"Really, that man's 'narsty' temper will get him into trouble some of these days," so quoth I to Betty.

She, however, did not treat it as a joke. "Be careful of that man, boy dear," she said. "He really hates you. You know he—he—"

"Yes, I know," I laughed contentedly. "He wanted to get my Betty, but he didn't."

"Be careful of him, boy dear, anyhow."

The train then came in, and off we went to the Convention, as Betty said, combining business with pleasure.

Barlow met us at the other end, and turned Betty over to the Chairman of the Ladies' Entertainment Committee and took me over to Convention Hall.

"You two will have to endure the hardship of being parted for an hour or two," he said with a laugh.

"Look after him, Mr. Barlow," said Betty. "Re[Pg 39]member he is down here for business, and he must not waste his time with nonsense."

"I never called you such a name as that yet," I said, and then we parted.

Barlow was an awfully interesting man to talk to! I never realized how human he was before. Certainly when I worked for him all the clerks at that time looked upon him as a creature outside of our world altogether. I don't think it ever dawned on any of us that he was a real human being, with likes and dislikes just the same as ourselves, and we never credited him with any thought or consideration for us other than how much work he could get out of us!

I felt a little ashamed of myself, in talking with him, to see how really interested he was in the welfare of all his employees. The thought occurred to me, while he was talking, that, as he was interested in us, why in heaven's name hadn't he told us so?

In thinking over the matter later on it seemed to me that it would be a good idea for the boss sometimes to ask a clerk how his wife was, or how the new baby was getting along. In fact, I didn't think it would hurt to take a clerk home to dinner occasionally—not often enough to make him one of the family, as it were, but it seemed to me that a proprietor could develop a great feeling of loyalty in his people over a round of beef, or a good cigar, out of business hours, than in any other way. I decided to try it some time, when things got better settled at the store.

When we got to the Convention it seemed that Barlow knew everybody, and he appeared to be very popular.

A fussy little man, named Minker, who seemed to[Pg 40] have something to say to every one, introduced himself to me, and we had some conversation. He asked me where I came from, and I told him.

"Oh," he said, "then you know Barlow?"

"Very well, indeed," I replied. "In fact, I used to work for him."

"If he was as fine a boss as he is a president, you were certainly fortunate," he returned.

"President of what?" I asked, in surprise.

He looked blank. "Why," he said, "president of the association!"

"I didn't know he had ever been president of the association!" I exclaimed. "He never said anything about it to us!"

"Hm!" he said, as he looked at me over his glasses. "Don't you ever read your trade papers?"

I felt a little bit small when I replied:

"N-no;" and then, feeling the need to excuse myself for it, I continued, "I've really been too busy."

"Ha!" he jerked, putting his head on one side like a sparrow, "bad habit to get into, that, if I may say so without being rude. Man can't know how best to conduct his own business unless he has some idea of what other people are doing. Got to know that to keep even with the times. Come along with me."

And then this little man, who I afterward found was one of the wealthiest hardware dealers in our State, took me by the arm, saying:

"I am going to introduce you to a trade paper man you ought to know."

He took me up to a group of men who were laughing at a story told by a big, raw-boned, loose-jointed man who seemed to be popular with the others.

[Pg 41]"Rob," said Minker, "come here!" And the big man good-naturedly came over, put his arm around the little man's shoulder, and asked:

"Well, what is it this time?"

"I want you to meet Mr. Dawson Black, who has only recently opened a store. Mr. Black," said he, "this is Mr. Robert Sirle, known to all his friends as Rob. He is the editor of Hardware Times."

"I'm mighty glad to meet you, Mr. Black," said Mr. Sirle, giving me a hearty handshake, "You bought Jim Simpson's business, didn't you?"

"Why, yes!" I replied. "How do you know?"

He smiled. "I wish I had known you a few months ago, Mr. Black," he said. "I might have saved you a bit of money. Didn't you read in Hardware Times some two years ago about the mess Simpson got into?"

"Why, no," I returned, "I don't know as I—I—as a matter of fact, I don't subscribe to trade papers. I haven't time to read them."

I would like to tell you what this big Westerner said. I am not sure whether it is what he said or the way he said it, but we sat down and we had a very serious talk, in which he told me how necessary it was for a business man to watch at all times the development of his trade; how the reading of trade papers kept him constantly posted, and continually gave him new ideas. He gave me some excellent pointers, and invited me to write to him any time he could be of help to me.

I at once subscribed for two copies of his paper to be sent to the store—one for myself and one for the salesmen. The last was his suggestion. I felt it would be a good investment, for, as he said, when the clerks read the magazine they get interested in the big[Pg 42]ger things about the business, they learn more about the goods, and get to appreciate some of the boss's responsibility and trouble.

It certainly was a fine thing for me to meet this man, representing a paper whose sole object appeared to be to help the retail merchant.

Some wonderfully interesting talks were given. One discussion which interested me greatly was about giving credits. Credit appeared to be the bane of the hardware man's life. Mr. Sirle had charge of a question box, and gave some fine suggestions which I decided I would try to adapt to my business.

One other thing, as soon as it was mentioned, aroused a lot of heated discussion—that was mail-order competition. Even in my short experience I had felt the pressure of these mail-order houses, but somehow or other I had taken it as a natural evil, and had not thought of taking any particular steps to combat it. One thin, cadaverous man voiced my thoughts when he said in a mournful drawl:

"The best thing to do is to appeal to the patriotism of the people. We live in the town, they know us, and they are with us all the time, and their very friendship for us ought to be enough to make them give us the business. I believe we all ought to have posters saying 'Buy in your home town' or something like that, and if you say this to the people long enough, they'll do it."

As soon as he finished a short, roly-poly kind of man jumped excitedly to his feet, and, having obtained permission to speak, said:

"I'm sorry I can't agree with Mr. Jenks. It's all right to talk patriotism, but, hang it all, is there any[Pg 43] one here who would buy from his home town if he could buy cheaper elsewhere? I'll bet every one of us here buys things out of our own towns. I know I buy my clothes in Boston, and my wife buys her shoes when she goes to New York to visit her sister. I can get better clothes and cheaper clothes in Boston than I can in my home town, and I should consider myself a poor business man if I put up with inferior clothes at a high price, just to support some local man who couldn't compete fairly with Boston merchants.

"I tell you, gentlemen, it's just a question of competition, and I think it's all poppycock to talk about appealing to a man's sentiment about his home town. All things being equal, I believe the local man would get the business every time. But if a man can buy a stove cheaper from the mail-order house than he can from me, I shouldn't expect to get the business.

"As a matter of fact, there are very few things that the mail-order house can beat us on. I know a fellow came into my store a few months ago and told me he could buy a stove I was selling cheaper from the mail-order house. I took him up on it, and said I didn't believe he could. He showed me the stove in the catalog, and I could see that it wasn't the same thing I had, and wasn't as good. I pointed out to him the difference, and he said, 'Yes, but look at the difference in the price!' He had forgotten that he had to pay the freight, and, when that was put on, there was mighty little difference between the two. Then I said to him: 'You send for that stove and set it up beside the one I have here, and, when you get them side by side, if you can honestly say that mine isn't the better value for your money, I'll pay the bill on your stove!'

[Pg 44]"He hesitated at that, and then I told him about a woman who bought one of these kitchen cabinets from a mail-order house, and, when she got it, it was all banged up, and she had no end of trouble in getting it straightened out, besides having to wait about six weeks before it came. She reckoned up afterward that if she had bought it of me she'd have been dollars in pocket and could have seen just what it looked like before buying it. That settled him, and he bought the stove from me!"

That started me thinking, and, going home on the train, I had a talk with Mr. Barlow about it, and also about the question of credits, for these were the two things that impressed me most at the whole convention, although there were many other interesting things taken up.

"I wonder," said I to Mr. Barlow, "whether it would be possible for us to kind of work together on credits—whether, if I were to tell you what customers owed me money, it would save you getting in badly with them, and you do the same with me?"

I felt very nervous in making this proposition, for I didn't know whether it was proper or not. I had never given such things as credits or competition the least thought while I was working with Barlow. I was surprised and delighted at the fine way in which he said:

"Why, certainly I will. Come up to the store and talk it over with me."

I made an appointment with him for the following night to discuss a policy to adopt for mutual protection on credits, and also on fighting mail-order competition.

[Pg 45]I could not help thinking what a wonderful thing a convention is. I had learned more about business in those three days than I ever knew before.

When I weighed the cost of going to the convention against the benefits I got out of it, I considered that I had made a good investment—not counting the happiness of a honeymoon!

[Pg 46]

I had promised to get to Barlow's as soon after eight as I could, and I was there at ten minutes past. Barlow welcomed me and led me to his office in the rear, and there I met with a surprise, for who should be sitting there in his office but Stigler, who ran the only other hardware store in town.

Stigler didn't attempt to rise when I came in; but just nodded curtly and said, "Howdy?"

I looked blank for a minute, and then said:

"I see you are busy, Mr. Barlow. I'll come in again."

"Sit right down, Dawson," he replied, "for if we are going to help each other on credits and on mail-order competition, we all need to get together, and it would not be fair for you and me to discuss this matter without asking Mr. Stigler's help also."

"Well," said Stigler, "if you fellers can show me anything that'll save me a dollar, I'm on. But I'm from Missouri! K-ha!"

His laugh was like the sound of a cork coming out of a bottle.

Barlow then explained to him what we purposed doing. When he had finished, Stigler said:

"Sounds pretty, all right, but how are yer goin' to do it?"

[Pg 47]"Couldn't we arrange," I offered, "to tell each other who we are charging goods to, and so prevent ourselves from running up unsafe bills?"

"How d'yer mean?" said Stigler.

"Well," I continued, "suppose there's a carpenter who has a bill of thirty or forty dollars coming to me which is overdue—why I tell you and Mr. Barlow that he owes me that money, and, when he comes to you for credit, you won't do business with him until he has paid me. That will make him pay me and save you running into danger with him."

I saw those thin lips of Stigler's turn up with derision.

"And," I continued hastily, "if anybody owes you anything, you let us know and we won't sell to him until he has paid you."

"Listens very pretty, Black," Stigler sneered, "but I guess when you've been in business as long as I have, you won't talk so glib about lettin' your competitors know just what you're doin' . . . Hold on," he said, when he saw Barlow and myself about to protest. "I don't mean that you fellers ain't straight, y' understand, but you couldn't prevent that information leakin' out to yer clerks, and what's to prevent them going to my customers and sellin' to them? And, besides, how do I know I'd get a complete list of yer creditors, and how do you know you'd get a complete list of mine? If that's your story, fellers, I'm goin' home!" and he rose to get his hat.

"Wait a minute," said Barlow. "If you wish, we can hire an accountant, and pay him jointly, and have him draw off those figures, and we can refer to him when we want to know anything about any one."

[Pg 48]Stigler lay back in his chair, and nodded his head toward us several times sarcastically.

"Of course Black, here," he said, "is a novice, and I don't give him credit for knowin' much; but you, Barlow, I thought you knew better than to put up a game like that on me. Nothin' doin', I tell yer. I wasn't born yesterday, and I ain't goin' to let you fellers get the inside pull of my business if I know it. Y' understand, I ain't got nothin' against you fellers, but I think if you just go ahead your way, and I go mine, we'll all be better friends in the end!"

I could see Barlow was really exasperated; but he controlled his temper and said:

"Very well, let us leave that. Would you be willing to join us in a circular to try to counteract the effect of mail-order competition?"

"I'm kinder suspicious, anyhow," replied Stigler. "How do you mean?"

"Why," said Barlow, "we could, perhaps, have a folder printed, quoting our prices against the mail-order prices, with a strong suggestion that people should buy from us as long as we can do as well as anybody else for them."

"Yer mean," said Stigler, "to just send that out as if from the three of us?"

"Exactly."

Stigler thought for a minute, and then said slowly: "And have everybody in town think that we fellers was probably workin' together to boost up prices? No, sir-ree, I think that's the most damfool suggestion I've ever heard! K-ha," he snapped out his laugh again. "Just think of anybody getting hold of a circular with three competitors' names on it! Why,[Pg 49] they'd naturally think at once that competitors don't work together unless they're gettin' something out of it."

"We are getting something out of it," I broke in. "We are going to get the mail-order business out of it!"

"Yer can't make me, and won't make the public, believe that. They'll believe we're just puttin' our heads together to do away with competition so's we can get fancy prices."

He stood up, and said, with a little boast in his manner:

"Stigler's allus been known for bein' a keen, cut-rate hardware man. By the gods, he's goin' to stay it. I'm strong enough to run my business without leanin' on you fellers, and I ain't goin' to let the public think for one second that I ain't."

"Then good night to you, sir!" said Barlow, angrily. I was mad clear through.

Stigler shrugged his shoulders. "Yer think I'm easy, don't yer?" he sneered, and went out.

When he had gone, Barlow put his hand on my shoulder.

"Dawson," he said, "Stigler has lived in this town for many years, trading on the reputation of his father, who was a fine gentleman. But he's been losing the better-class trade rapidly, and is only holding up business by cutting prices right and left. That policy can't win in the end."

"For heaven's sake! Mr. Barlow," I cried, "why did you ask him here? If there is one man I detest more than another, it's Stigler!"

"Because," he replied gravely, "if we are going to[Pg 50] exercise coöperation, it must be complete, and personalities must be sunk for the greater issues. I like Stigler even less than you do, but that mustn't prevent us giving him an opportunity to work with us."

"Well, he's refused, and the two of us can work together on these plans," I said.

Then, to my utter amazement, Barlow shook his head, and said: "We can't do it, Dawson."

"B-but," I stammered, "in the train you said you thought it was a good idea!"

"So I did, and I still think so, if we could have Stigler with us. But don't you see," he said, "that, if we were to come out with an advertisement under our joint names, Stigler would tell every one in the town that either I had bought you out—remember that you worked for me only a few weeks ago—or else that we had combined to drive him out of business. And, as soon as you put a man in a position where people think he's a martyr, they'll flock to help him. It seems to be a peculiarity of human nature to want to fight for the under dog, and I think you've seen enough of Stigler to know that he would use that weapon to the fullest advantage."

"Well, can't we work together on the credit scheme?" I asked.

"No," he replied, "for, if we did that along the line suggested, Stigler would tell people that we were telling our customers' business to each other, and you can imagine the general feeling then. Stigler would urge them to come to him, and tell them that he would keep their business private, and such things as that."

I must have looked dejected, for Barlow laughed[Pg 51] sympathetically, put his arm around my shoulder, and said:

"Now I know you had your heart set on doing this, Dawson, but it's really only a little matter."

"Little?" I said, remembering the hullabaloo at the convention when mail-order competition was mentioned, as well as the question of credits.

"Yes," he replied, "for we can help each other in a quiet way without any definite plan. Now, if you've any credit customers about whom you are in doubt, come in and see me and I'll tell you what I can of them."

"And you'll do the same, sir?"

"I surely will," said he.

And we shook hands and that was how it ended.

To think that the possibility of a real fight against the mail-order houses, and the certainty of checking credit losses, should be knocked in the head by one man who, because he happened to be a crook himself, thought everybody else was!

[Pg 52]

The next evening, Jock McTavish and I had a long pow-wow over a plan to check credits. It is always a good idea to talk over such matters with an accountant, and Jock was some accountant, in spite of having come from "Doomfreeze" as he called it.

In the morning I took a form over to the printers with instructions to have it printed on 4 × 6-in. cards. I had an old cabinet that just took that size—and besides Jock said it was better than the 3 × 5-in. size. He said, "Most card indices, run on a 3 × 5-in. card, are crowded. The card is really too small except for such simple uses as an address index. The result is that the small cards soon get so cluttered up with notes and additions as to be difficult to read. Better use the 4 × 6-in. size, and give yourself room to write all you want and still keep it in order."

Jock glared at me when he said that, for he considered that I was careless in my bookkeeping just because I carried charges on scraps of paper till evening and then entered them all at once.

We decided that, starting on the first of the next month, we would make every customer wanting credit give us the following information, and sign it.

This is a copy of the form:

[Pg 53]

We would first get his full name and home address. Then, if he was in business for himself, we would know that, and also where his business was. If he worked for some one else, we'd know it. Then, if he was a plumber, he must state what kind of goods he would most need, and so on. This was my idea. Jock said that builders, carpenters, plumbers and such like would object to that clause. He said they would think it was no business of mine what they bought as long as they paid for it.

I believed, however, that if I had a number of customers likely to use a lot of supplies of a certain kind, it would help me and them if I knew it. I could then buy accordingly.

Further, if I found a man buying a lot of goods quite different from what his card said he used, I'd know there was something wrong and could at once look into it.

[Pg 54]The next two items on the card were, of course, the crux of the whole thing. We wanted to pin a man down to a definite credit limit, both as regards time and amount.

With the customer's signature to that card I could easily stop a man's credit if he exceeded his limit in either way.

Betty thought it was an excellent thing,—if I could get it started; and Jock said it was a good plan,—if it worked. I showed a rough draft of it to Barlow at lunch time, and he said it wouldn't work. So, between the lot of 'em I got mighty little encouragement.

Still, perhaps it was best to act on my own judgment. If I was wrong I'd know better next time.

Every credit customer who came into the store was to be passed over to me, and I was going to tell him a little story like this:

"Mr. ——, I've only recently bought this business, and I'm not yet acquainted with all my customers and their needs. Now I see we have an account open with you, and I'm very glad to accommodate you. It will help me to give you good service and to meet your wishes if you will please give me the particulars of your needs."

Then I was going to ask him those questions, fill in the card myself as he answered them and, passing it over to him, I'd ask him if it was all correct. If he said "yes" I'd pass him my pen without a word—and I felt sure he would sign it without a murmur. At least that was my guess.

One thing was certain, I simply had to cut down my credit business. I was hard up, and owed more than I had in the bank. Of course the accounts were[Pg 55] good, but I could not pay my bills with somebody else's unpaid account. The previous week's business had been $428.00, and $204.00 of it had been charged!

I had a crowd of small accounts, people who had bought and promised to come in "at the end of the week," or who had asked to have the goods delivered and promised to pay the boy—and when the boy delivered, they had said, "Tell Mr. Black I'll be in to-morrow and pay him. I haven't the change now."

When, oh! when was "to-morrow"? Unless I got some ready cash soon I'd have to ask some of my creditors to wait until "to-morrow."

The next day, while I was out for lunch, old Peter Bender, the carpenter, came in for some more goods. He had bought $18.75 worth early in the month; a little later he had bought $11.00 worth, and, while I was at the convention, he had got another $8.50 worth of goods.

I had blamed Larsen for that last lot of $8.50, for I had said that Peter was to pay up before getting more goods. However, it had got by Larsen and I had said nothing. Peter had come in as soon as I had left the store, and told Walter, the first assistant, that he was to tell me that my bill would be paid "to-morrow." He had then said there were "a few odds and ends" he wanted—and took $26.00 worth of tools with him. That brought the total to $64.25.

I was really uneasy about it—I was more—I was worried, for Barlow had told me that he would not sell him anything until he had paid a bill of $2.65, while I had gone to $64.25!

Peter had "stuck" Simpson too, I remembered, for Peter had told me when he bought the first lot of[Pg 56] goods that Jim Simpson had accepted $10.30 in full settlement of over $60.00!

Betty was quite "snippy" that evening. She said she was worrying over the way I managed the business. I fancied she had started to say "mismanaged" it. We almost "got to words." However, I told her that Fellows of the Flaxon Advertising Agency was writing a form letter for me to send to the people who owed me small accounts. There was over $300.00 worth of such accounts, none over $5.00.

Fellows, however, telephoned me that he could not get over till late the following afternoon with the collection letter, so I decided to write it myself.

When he arrived I showed it to him. I set it down here as a horrible example of how not to do it. This is it:

When Fellows read that he laughed and said: "I don't think that hits the mark at all. If any one were to pay you on the strength of that letter, it would be with the determination never to do any more busi[Pg 57]ness with you. You want to coax the money out of 'em. You want to try to put it in such a way that they will pay you and feel glad about it. Do you think any one would feel pleased at such an abrupt demand for payment? Now I spent all last night and all the morning trying to—"

Here I broke in with "Does it take all that time to write a single dunning letter?"

"For one letter, no; but for a form letter that is going to sixty or seventy people, yes. It is really important that it will not offend any one and yet 'bring home the bacon.' Here it is," and he passed me this:

I took it over to a young stenographer who promised to typewrite them for me as quickly as possible. I thought it was worth the little extra cost to send these people real individual letters, each one signed by myself.

Fellows offered to send me three more letters on collections. He advised me to put in a regular "follow-up" system.

I was a little dubious, and told him so, of the wisdom[Pg 58] of such a system in a small town. "It's all right for San Francisco, or Chicago, or New York," I said. "But here, where I know so many people, won't they think I'm putting on side?"

"No," he said, "for you send a letter that is not a formal one by any means. Follow-up systems can be just as successful in a small town as in big cities, if you will see that the letter expresses your own personality. A high-falutin', high-brow letter would be a joke, but a human letter, written in the language you use, and that your customers are used to, will win out every time."

[Pg 59]

When I totaled my sales for the month, I was somewhat gratified to find that they were $2,280.00. The best month the store had had for a long time, I fancied.

The only fly I could see in the ointment was that over $600.00 worth of goods were charged during the month. I had considerably over a thousand dollars on the books, and it seemed to me a lot to have in two months. However, the plan which I put into force the first of the month had certainly cut down charge accounts.

Most fellows had fallen in line with the new plan of controlling credits, and I felt sure it would work out splendidly, although one old chap, Mr. Dawborn, had felt insulted (he owed me $18.75—and still owes it, by the way) and said he refused to be card-indexed and checked up like a criminal being put through the third degree. He worked himself into a fine fit of fury, and bounced out of the store, saying that he would give Stigler all his trade in future.

I was so "rattled" that I forgot to ask him to pay his account before doing so!

The incident reminded me of something that Larsen had told me about Stigler. He said that Stigler was talking about me and saying that I was a "smarty"[Pg 60] and that it was about time somebody "slapped my wrist." Stigler claimed that he would run me off my feet by Christmas.

I remember wishing his store was not so near. I could see it from the front of mine. I had noticed that, whenever he and I happened to meet he would say, "Howdy" in such a contemptuous manner that I felt like knocking his block off! Excuse my free and easy language, but I sure did hate that man!

I have interrupted my story just when I was recording the standing of my business at the first of the third month as nearly as I could estimate it.

Cash in bank, $1,920.00.
Accounts owing to me, $1,265.00.
Purchases for previous month, $4,220.00.
Bills I owed, $3,820.00.

I decided I must get hold of Jock McTavish, for there was something wrong in it all. I had had to get that stock, but I did not have enough in cash and accounts owing to me to pay all my trade bills.

However, I had until the 10th, and if I had a good week I would be pretty nearly all right; still I did feel a bit uncomfortable about owing so much more than I could pay right away, even though I had got a fine new stock of gardening tools, and a new line of carpenter and household tools, besides a new line in aluminum ware.

I understood that Stigler was mad because I had opened up in the carpenter tool line so much more than my predecessor had.

Jock had told me that I ought to reduce my stock and increase my sales. I had increased my sales, but increased my stock also. Still, I had saved quite[Pg 61] a lot in price by buying in large quantities, and, if the worst came to the worst, I could pay everybody but the Boston jobbers.

Bates & Hotchkin, to whom I owed nearly $2,000.00, had been very decent to me. They had sent their man to help me take stock and never charged me a cent. I had given them the bulk of my general business, and they had looked after me in great shape. I felt that they would give me an extra thirty-days credit if I asked for it, and I certainly would sooner ask them than any one else.

I studied the figures that evening until Betty came in and put her dear hands on my forehead and said, "How hot your head is, boy dear—are you worrying over anything in particular?" "No," I said with a smile. "Well," she replied, "it is 12:30 and quite time you were getting some beauty sleep."

I said I was not worried, but I didn't like the size of my liabilities. I began to think I had been a fool in buying so heavily.

The next morning I had a bit of excitement, with the result that I paid Myricks his money and let him go.

I had decided to adhere to the division of expenses that Jock had worked out, and that meant reducing the force. Accordingly, I had told Myricks that he could stay a few weeks until he got another job, and I meant it, but that morning, when I caught him in the basement tossing lamp chimneys into the fixtures so carelessly that a number of them were broken, I got mad and told him he was an ungrateful scamp, and that I thought he was deliberately destroying my property. He turned around and said I had no cause[Pg 62] to say he was a crook, and that, even if I was his boss, he had friends who would help him to protect his reputation!

Then I saw red, and plugged him under the jaw! Next I called him upstairs, gave him a week's money, and let him go.

His parting remark was, "Everybody's getting wise to you; I'm glad to be through before the smash comes. Mr. Stigler told me what would happen and I can get a job there now—and I'm going to him right away!"

It didn't scare me any—it merely aroused my fighting blood. There was one good lesson I learned that day, though, and that was, "Never to talk to an employee while in a temper." I felt that I had lowered my dignity by so doing; and, even though I had done him no harm, I certainly had not done myself any good.

I didn't like what he had said about Stigler, but if he thought it worried me he was mistaken. If Stigler was spoiling for a fight I'd give him one! . . .

I had begun to think that Larsen was a pretty shrewd fellow; certainly when he did thaw enough to make a criticism it was generally worth listening to.

One day, Jerry Teller, a rather fussy carpenter who did excellent work, and who was always wanted when any extra fine work was desired, came in with a complaint that a back saw he had bought a week or so before was not perfect. I looked it over carefully, but couldn't see a thing the matter with it until Jerry pointed out a crack in the handle from the rivet to[Pg 63] the back. It was such a trifling thing that I did not feel inclined to change it, besides, as I told him, how did I know it hadn't cracked since he had had it? He swore up and down that it was like that when he bought it, for he was too careful of his tools to damage them. He demanded a new saw or his money back.

I told him the saw had become second-hand goods and that I didn't deal in second-hand goods. We had a lot of talk back and forth, but I was doing some tall thinking and finally decided that it was better to give him a new saw than to let him feel dissatisfied, so, somewhat against my will, I finally gave him a new saw. But it didn't seem to please him, for he left the store still grumbling about the way I tried to "put it over him."

Larsen had been watching the whole incident, so, after Jerry left the store I turned to Larsen and said, "There's no satisfying some people, Larsen."

"You no try to satisfy him much, eh, boss?" he replied.

"What do you mean?" said I.

"Say I come to the store. You kicked up a fuss. Then you change the saw. I don't feel pleased. Yet you give me a new saw," he answered.

And then I saw the light! Great guns, what a fool I was! I didn't seem to know the first thing about business. Ever since I got the store my life seemed to have been a series of doing things wrong. And it took Larsen to show me a mistake!

I turned to him and said, "Thank you, Larsen; you are right; I appreciate your frankness." Then I held out my hand to him, which he shook awkwardly,[Pg 64] and said, "That's all right, boss; I am still learning; you are still learning—thank you."

I was beginning to like Larsen!

One thing I then and there resolved to do was this: If any one came in with a complaint of any kind, I was going to let him have his say and get it off his chest. Then, instead of arguing with him as to what I should do, I would turn around and say: "I am very sorry you are not quite satisfied with that article, for I can't afford to have any one leave this store feeling dissatisfied. Now, if you will tell me just what you want me to do to satisfy you, I'll do it." Then, whatever he said, even if it meant a direct loss to me, I'd do what he wanted with a smile. I'd not appear suspicious of him, but treat him in such a way that he'd feel pleased.

[Pg 65]

My sales for the next two weeks fell to an average of $328.00—but, thank goodness, less than $50.00 of the whole were charge accounts!

The plan of making people state how much credit they wanted seemed to be working out well. The deadbeats flew up in the air and said they wouldn't do business with any one that wanted their pedigree before allowing them to buy goods, but the worthwhile ones saw the reasonableness of the request and fell in line with it.

I believed that, while my sales were down 25 per cent., I would be better off in the end, for what I had left I believed was real business. That is, I would be better off if I could only stick it out.

Soon after the first of the month I paid off all my creditors except Bates & Hotchkin, the Boston jobbing house with which I did the bulk of my business. I wrote them a letter saying that I had overbought, and told them that, as they were the largest creditor, I had paid the others and would send them a check as soon as I could. They had always been so decent I didn't expect any trouble at all, and what was my surprise the next day to have a Mr. Peck call on me and tell me that he was the credit man for Bates & Hotchkin!

[Pg 66]"Glad to see you," I said, although mentally I was not at all glad to see him. I had a feeling as if dicky birds were walking up and down my spine. "What can I do for you?"

For reply he handed me a statement of their account, the amount of which was $1,079.00.

"Oh," said I, "I wrote you about this yesterday."

"I know," said Peck calmly. "I'm the answer to your letter. I have come for a check."

"But I told you," I replied, rather irritably, "that I couldn't give it to you just now, and that you would have to wait a little!"

"Mr. Black," he returned, "will you tell me if there is any reason why we should wait for our money when you pay every one else?" His voice retained its even tone.

"Yes, I will," I replied, getting hot, "because you are getting the bulk of my business, and, as I am doing as much as I can for you, you have got to do as much as you can for me!"

"Suppose I should tell you, Mr. Black," he said, "that we gave you credit, in the first place, merely because Mr. Barlow spoke so well of you. We certainly didn't give it to you on the reputation of the store you bought."

I winced at this.

"Remember," he continued, "that Simpson deceived us the same as he did everybody else, so that the business, as such, doesn't justify any credit, does it?"

I turned around sharply, and said:

"I am not asking you to give credit to the business. I am asking you to give credit to me, and—"

"And all you can show us, by way of credit rating,[Pg 67] is the fact that your old employer speaks well of you!"

"Well," I returned, thoroughly vexed, "the long and short of it is that I can't pay you just now, and you have just got to wait for your money! But let me tell you this—it's the last red penny of my money you'll ever get!"

Still Mr. Peck replied with his calm demeanor:

"Under those circumstances, Mr. Black, can you give me any reason why we should wait for our money? If you were in my place, wouldn't you be inclined to force collection?"

Before I could reply, he continued:

"I have come down here, Mr. Black, to try to help you, and perhaps I can, but you have got to realize first of all that you haven't treated us fairly."

I was about to protest against this, when he put up his hand and said:

"Wait a minute, Mr. Black. You can't see it in your present frame of mind, and you probably think we are very hard to come down on you like this, when you have been in business only such a short time. That is the reason we take this stand. Had you been in business for some years we should have known you inside and out, and would have known just what to do. Now, if your credit is really good in the town, and you have anything back of you, you can borrow the money and give me my check before I leave town."

"Great guns, man," I cried, "to whom do you think I can go to borrow that amount!"

"Why," said he, "haven't you got a bank account here?"

[Pg 68]"Yes," said I, "but they won't lend me any money!"

Mr. Peck's face seemed suddenly to harden, and, putting his fingers on the desk, he said:

"Mr. Black, we are simply wasting time. What do you think a bank's for? A bank isn't a mere safe deposit for money! It's a bank's business to lend money! Better go and see your bank now. I'll be back in two hours!"

Without another word he turned and left the store.

At that I completely lost my temper.

"I'll be damned if I will!" I cried to Larsen, who was standing by. "Those people can wait for their money, and you can just bet that I'm through doing business with them! They're not the only jobbers in the world. Dirty, low-down trick, I call it!"

I was much surprised when Larsen replied:

"You paid all other fellers, yes? You not pay him. You get mad with your debtors when they don't pay you? Doesn't the same sauce suit all birds?" (Larsen got his maxim a bit twisted, but I knew what he meant, all right.) "If I might suggest, I would go down to bank and talk with them. You won't be worse off, perhaps better."

The more I saw of Larsen the more respect I had for his judgment, and I believed I had done quite right when at the beginning of the month I had frankly talked over my position with him. We had planned to talk over a scheme of profit-sharing with the help, but there had been so many things happening that we had had to defer it for a time.

Well, I went and had a talk with Blickens, the president of the bank. He shook hands very cordially[Pg 69] with me, but, when I told him what my errand was, the jovial manner seemed to fall away from him, and he became reserved and grave. Mighty suspicious, I thought.

"It's no disgrace to want to borrow money, Mr. Black," said he, "if you have your business in such shape that it will justify a loan."

I thought I read the suspicion in his voice that I was running the business to the wall. However, I told him fully just how things stood, showed my sales slips, amount of stock on hand, amounts owing, and all that, which I had brought with me at Larsen's suggestion. He looked over the figures very carefully. Then he said:

"How much do you want?"

"Fifteen hundred dollars," I replied, rather timidly.

"You owe those jobbers only $1,079.00 that is actually overdue," he replied, "and that's really the only pressing debt you have. Let's see—you have now $328.00 balance to your credit in the bank. A thousand dollars is all you need. Now, I'll let you have that much. You can then pay off those jobbers, and still have a balance of about $250.00 on your account. You should not let it get below that figure. Your stock is far too heavy for your turn-over, and I think the best thing you can do is to find some way of turning your surplus stock into cash, and you must absolutely cease giving wild credit."

"I've done that already," I said, and told him in detail what I had done.

"That's excellent," he replied, "and I'm glad to know that you have put that into force. You must,[Pg 70] however, reduce your stock. Much better for you to lose a little business for the next few months, and get yourself on a sound financial basis, than to be skating, as you are, on thin ice."

He looked over my list of accounts that were owing to me, and, putting a mark against a number of them, he said:

"Those people are tricksters. You'll only waste your time trying to get anything from them."

Great Scott! And I had thought, when I was working for Barlow, that I could run his business as well as he could! Mr. Barlow, I then and there went on record as saying that you were a bigger man than I was, and that I took my hat off to you! I wonder if all employees have the same all-fired conceit in regard to their abilities that I had had? If they have, I advise them to try running a store for a little while! It isn't enough just to be a business man—you have got to be an expert on mechanics, a diplomat, a financier, a master salesman, an accountant, a lawyer, an advertising man—whew! if I had known of the difficulties of running a store I think I would have hesitated a long while before assuming the burden!

Well, the loan was fixed up and I went back to the store, and in a little while Mr. Peck came back. I gave him his check, saying rather coldly:

"That cleans the account up to date, Mr. Peck."

"Yes," he responded. "And now your credit is as good with us as it was before."

I still looked unresponsive, and then he took me by the arm, and brought me to the rear of the store.

"Listen, young man," he said—his manner was[Pg 71] very kindly. "If you ever really need money, you will find we will be quite willing to help you in reason; but you really didn't need it this time, you know, and I wanted to give you a lesson in thrift and financing, and to impress it seriously on your mind.

"Always make a point of discounting your bills, even if you have to borrow money from the bank to do it. Let me illustrate what this will save you. Suppose that you can take a two per cent. discount by paying a bill in ten days. Now suppose you allow the bill to run to thirty days. You lose that two per cent. for an accommodation of twenty days. That is at the rate of thirty-six per cent. a year. You can borrow money from the bank at the rate of six per cent. a year, and make so much clear saving. You can figure it out this way, if you like. Your purchases are, let us suppose, about $12,000.00 a year, or $1,000.00 a month. I know they are more than that, but those figures will serve to illustrate my point. On your monthly purchase of $1,000.00 you lose two per cent., or $20.00, by taking a full month instead of paying it in ten days. If you borrow that $1,000.00 from the bank for the twenty days necessary it costs you only $3.33, so that you make $16.67 a month, which amounts to"—he figured it out—"to $200.00 a year!"

That was surely a new light on finance to me!

"Now," he went on, "it seems to me that your business should be put in such shape that you can take your discounts without even the necessity of borrowing, and you can save the interest. Here you are with sales of about $25,000.00 a year and a stock costing you around $8,000.00 or $9,000.00. Deduct[Pg 72]ing the gross profit from your sales, which amounts to about thirty-three and one-third per cent., it leaves $16,667.00, which means that you are turning over your stock only about twice a year. You should work this up to three and one-half times a year."

This question of turn-over seemed to me to be a most important one, judging from the way every one I talked with hammered on it. I realized then that Mr. Peck had done me a good turn, and I felt grateful.

"Do you think it is possible, Mr. Peck," I said, "for me to turn my stock over three and one-half times a year?"

"Why, yes," he said. "I know many hardware stores that turn their stock over more times than that. Reduce your stock, eliminate the slow-selling lines, buy carefully for the next few months, and you will have no difficulty in taking your discounts. Besides the saving you will make, you will be building up a reputation as a trustworthy man—and that's a decidedly helpful thing for a retail merchant."

As he turned to leave I held out my hand and said, with the best grace I could:

"I reckon I made a bit of a fool of myself, Mr. Peck. I want to thank you for your help to me."

His handclasp as he said good-by was a good, hearty one, and I felt I had a real friend in that credit manager.

[Pg 73]

I had thought out a novel way to fight the mail-order competition. It had come to me from an article I had read in a magazine about how a druggist in a small town in the Middle West had practically eliminated mail-order competition—at least temporarily—in his town. I decided immediately to try it. Betty says I am always too impetuous. When I reviewed what happened, I was uncertain whether I had done myself good or harm; but one thing was certain—I surely did get a lot of publicity!

After I had read that article in the magazine, I said to myself: "Now, that's reasonable. If people haven't got a mail-order catalog, they won't buy from the mail-order house. Why didn't I think of that before? If I get this mail-order catalog, I take away from them the thing that makes it easy for them to buy."

In the lower corner of the ad I had a picture and description of the talking machine, set off by a border.

Then I had two men march about the town with boards across their shoulders, on which were painted,

"DAWSON BLACK'S MAIL-ORDER CATALOG CONTEST. TAKE A CHANCE! SEE THE NEWSPAPERS!"

This is the ad I put in both our papers:[Pg 74]

I had only a few days between the announcement of the contest and the time for the drawing, because I thought, if the time were longer, people would write to the mail-order houses for catalogs so as to enter them in the contest.

I didn't know just what the effect would be, but I did know there was a lot of money going out of the town to the mail-order houses.

The avalanche started the next morning. Before we opened the store there was a line of youngsters outside, each carrying from one to six catalogs. Great big fellows, they were, many of them.

As they came into the store, we passed out coupons, each one numbered separately. A boy bringing in two catalogs got two coupons, and so on. All the week we had catalogs rolling in. Some of them were ten years old. I didn't know there were so many mail-[Pg 75]order houses. By the looks of many of the catalogs they had been frequently used.

One funny incident occurred. Mrs. Robinson, whom everybody swore was the original woman with the serpent's tongue—she could never see good in anything or anybody—came into the store in high indignation, saying that her little boy, Wallace, had, without her permission, collected her four mail-order catalogs and had turned them into the store for coupons, and she demanded that I give the catalogs back.

I explained to her that I didn't know which catalogs were hers. She replied that I had catalogs from all the mail-order concerns, and I must give her one of this and one of that and one of another, or otherwise she would make trouble for me!

I had had so many people talking big to me lately that I was getting up a fighting spirit. I turned around to her and said:

"I'm sorry I can't comply with your request. If you have anything else to say, please say it. If not, good-by!"

Gee whiz! what that woman did say! Anyway, she left the store after a while, and didn't get her catalogs. She had never spent a penny with me, and never would. She was a relation of Stigler's, and I had a "hunch" that he had put her up to it.

Stigler had been telling all around town that I was afraid of mail-order competition because my prices were higher, and that that was why I was collecting the catalogs. He said he didn't care how many catalogs people had, he could hold his own with competition.

[Pg 76]I met Barlow one lunch time and he came over and put his hand on my shoulder, saying:

"You put the cat among the pigeons this time, didn't you?"

"Why?" I replied.

"Well, everybody is talking about your buying up mail-order catalogs."

"I am not buying them up."

"Same thing," he grinned. "You are surely getting a lot of publicity from it, though. Some people think it's a mighty clever trick, others think it's a mean trick, some others think you are scared. Well, they are talking about you, at any rate. Good luck to you! Go carefully, however."

Well, we had mail-order catalogs stacked up in every corner. I arranged with a junkman to buy them at quite a fair price, and, to my utter surprise, I got enough money from the sale of those catalogs to pay for the cost of the machine and a little bit over towards the advertising!

I was mighty glad I had arranged with the furniture store to display the machine, for Martin, the proprietor, said he had crowds of people looking at it. There was a sign on it saying, "This machine will be given free by Dawson Black to the person drawing the winning coupon in the mail-order catalog contest."

Stigler said that the whole thing was illegal, and came under the gambling law, but nothing was done about it, and I knew that, if it was illegal, Stigler would have found some way of getting at me on it.

One thing was sure—the town did not have many[Pg 77] mail-order catalogs in it after the contest. I had a big bunch of valuable advertising from it—at least, I thought it was valuable.

For some time Stigler had been telling around town what he was going to do to me. I had heard he had made the remark that he was going to cut the heart out of me, and he surely tried to, for, whenever I had anything in my window or advertised in the papers, he immediately turned around and sold the same article at a lower price. Whenever I had found him doing this, I had immediately cut down below him, and many things I had to sell below cost. But I didn't see any help for it—I couldn't let him get ahead of me on prices like that. I felt that I had to follow his lead wherever he went, and trust to making my profit out of other things. But it surely was heartbreaking to have a fellow like that bucking me.

One day, Rob Sirle, the editor of Hardware Times called on me. He said he had heard about my stunt for beating the mail-order people and he wanted to know about it.

I told him all about it, but somehow he didn't seem very much impressed. He didn't say much about it, but I remembered that some one had remarked to me at the convention that he never spoke about anything unless he could boost it.

I told him about Stigler and the price-cutting contest that was then on between us.

"I'll tell you what you want to do to beat that," said he. "You put goods in your window to-morrow morning and mark them at exact invoice price. Wait until friend Stigler has put the same goods in his[Pg 78] window at less than cost, and then as soon as he has done it, remove your price tickets. If any one comes in to buy them, sell them only at regular price, except, of course, if they come in while the cut price is marked on them. You can well afford to let Stigler sell all the goods he wants at below cost price, because the more he sells the more quickly he will eliminate himself as a competitor.

"Every day you can put a new line in the window. I don't think it will be very long before he gives up the foolish task of cutting his own throat. I always compare the price-cutter," he said musingly, "with a hog which cuts its own throat as it swims. That is just what the indiscriminate price-cutter does. He cuts his own throat first. I never saw a price-cutter yet who had a real, solid business. People are wise these days, you know. You offer anything at less than cost price and people flock to buy it; but it doesn't mean that they are necessarily going to buy other goods at the same time. No, sir! They'll buy the cut-price goods from the cut-price store, but they'll buy the regular goods at a regular price from the store which offers them courteous service in place of cut-price chicanery!"

I at once decided to follow his advice.

I happened to mention to him that I went to Boston quite often. He asked me if I knew Barker, the hardware man there. "Quite a big man in the hardware trade," said he. "You ought to meet him. Here," and he wrote me a card of introduction, "next time you go to Boston, drop in and see him. If you ever get into any difficulty he's just the man to help you."

And then, having in the most matter-of-fact manner[Pg 79] given me an introduction to one of the biggest live wires in the trade, he turned around and sauntered out of the store.

[Pg 80]

Isn't it astonishing how easy it is to do things wrong!

A salesman came in one morning from the Cincinnati Pencil Sharpener Company to offer me the local agency for the firm's pencil pointers. He walked into the store with what I said to myself was a silly grin, but Larsen, when we were talking the matter over afterward, said he looked a jolly, good-natured fellow, so perhaps it was just my nerves twisting things around.

I was just going over my stock of butt hinges when he came in. I was feeling disappointed because our stock was lower than I had thought it was, since I was getting so that I positively hated to buy! Well, I looked up at him and snapped:

"What do you want?"

"Good afternoon, Mr. Black," he replied. "I represent the Cincinnati Pencil Sharpener Company, and I want—"

Here I broke in testily:

"I'm too busy now. Besides, we're not in the stationery line. You want to go to a stationer with that thing. . . . Well," I said angrily, as he made no attempt to go, "if there is anything else you want to[Pg 81] say, please say it quickly; if not, you will have to excuse me, because I am really too busy to waste time with drummers to-day."

"Excuse me, Mr. Black," he returned a little hotly, "I am not a drummer—I am a salesman. I came to talk with you about giving you a special agency, but it is evident that in your present frame of mind I would only be wasting my time. I will come back later."

With that he walked out of the store.

I certainly felt mad! I could have chewed ten-penny nails!

"Did you ever hear such impudence?" I cried to Larsen.

Larsen looked up with that queer little expression on his face that I had come to recognize as preceding something that disagreed with me, and said:

"Impudence by who, Boss?"

"By him, of course! I'm the Boss here, and, if there is any kow-towing to be done, he's the fellow to do it!"

Larsen didn't say another word, but shook his head.

"Larsen," said I testily, "you seem to take delight in pointing out flaws in my management!"

Again I saw that queer expression come into his face.

"Management," I cried, "not mismanagement! What was wrong with what I did just now?"

Larsen did sometimes make me mad, but I usually found on thinking things over that he was very logical in his reasoning. I had learned a lot from him and I had come to depend on him a good deal, and he had got me so that he was quite free with me.

[Pg 82]He walked toward me, leaned against a counter, and said:

"Boss, drummers like him makes money. More money than most retailers. From money angle he is as good as people he sells to. He must know goods to sell them. In that way he is equal to the merchant. He travels over the country and he gets lots of ideas—and all that. He generally has good schooling and comes from good home. He is, in how he lives and who he knows, equal of his customers. Then, again, store keepers would be in a h——"

"Tut, tut!" I said.

"—In a deuce of a mess if traveling salesmen did not call. You hear about new stuff from drummers. Suppose you get mad and they won't call? You are real loser. Simpson used to be that way. You know, Boss, I used to hear some of them salesmen damn him like they meant it. One feller came here with agency for Stamford saws. Now, you know, Boss, Stamford saws is one of best agencies Barlow has. Simpson could have got it. I don't know why he come to Simpson first, because Barlow is—was—leading hardware man in town."

I smiled at the implied compliment.

"Well, in he come here, and Simpson treat him about like—well, he treat him like a dog. You know what that feller did?"

"No," I replied curiously, "what did he do?"

"He put his grip on the floor, walked around the counter, took hold of Simpson's nose and gave it one h——" I held up my finger warningly—"a deuce of a pull!"

My hand unconsciously went to my nose, and I saw[Pg 83] a twinkle come into Larsen's eyes as he noticed the movement.

"Well, that feller, he went right over to Barlow. Barlow knew a good thing when he saw it. He tied up that agency."

"Good Heavens," I said, "it never dawned on me that any traveling salesman wouldn't be only too tickled to do business with anybody he could!"

"I tell you, Boss," said Larsen, "I have been in retail business now, let's see—forty years. The more I see of drummers the better they seem. If I were boss of a store I'd never turn a salesman down cold. If I couldn't buy I would say no, like I was sorry. Some day that feller would have a real bargain. Would he offer it to the feller who balls him out? No, sir-ree! He tip off to the feller who treated him white.

"Just think, Boss," he continued, "going around from town after town. Lot of places he sleep at just like what a bum has. Lots of folks give him cold turn-down. When he gets decent treatment from a merchant, he look upon it as a—what do you call the place in the sand where they have trees and water?"

"An oasis in the desert?"

"Yes, that's it, Boss. An oasis in the desert."

"Larsen, you old vagabond, I believe you're right; and if that pencil sharpener fellow doesn't give his agency to Barlow"—I grinned as I said this—"I'll—I'll turn him down with a smile!"

"That's all right, Boss; but how you know you want to turn him down?"

"Oh, we don't want to handle those things. We're[Pg 84] not in the stationery business. That's a stationer's line!"

"But why?" persisted Larsen.

"Why? Because stationers sell pencils!"

"Y-yes, y-yes," said Larsen with a drawl, "and so do 5 and 10-cent stores—and department stores—and drygood stores—and drug stores. Why not hardware stores? Do you know, Boss, I think hardware people sleepy on the switch. We sell razors, and then let the fellers go to the drug store to buy powder an' soap an' brushes. We got a few brushes, but seem scared to show 'em. What happens? The druggist sells 'em the powder and then they give us a devil"—again I put up my hand, I was trying to break Larsen of swearing—"well, they give us a run for our money because they sell razors. I was up to New York last year, and I saw a drug store that had a picture frame department, and a line of toys, and brass and copper novelties—everything what we ought to sell and what was ours till we let these other stores swipe it from us."

Here Larsen stopped for breath. This was a lot for him to say at one time, but he was "wound up" evidently for he resumed.

"Look at automobiles! If we fellers had been alive, we would not have let them specialty places crop up all over the place. Hardware stores oughter have the garage. We oughter have the profits of automobile accessories. Some fellers are getting alive to the job, but some still say we oughten ter butt into somebody else's line!" He sneered as he said this.

"If owned a hardware store I would sell any[Pg 85]thing I could get a profit on. I'd put in a line of pastry if I thought I could get away with it!"

"Your forty-five years in the hardware trade hasn't got you into a rut then, Larsen?" I said with a smile.

"You bet your life, nix, Boss! You are the first man that let me speak right out to him, and you know I don't mean to be—to be—you know what I mean—bossy like. But it gets my goat how hardware folks has let good things get away from them!"

I had sometimes wondered why Larsen, with all his experience and knowledge, and many good ideas that I had found him to have, hadn't got farther ahead in the world. I had decided that it was perhaps because he was lacking in a certain independence of spirit—and while he spoke freely to me, and wasn't afraid to correct me, it was more because I was young and inexperienced compared with him, and because I had got so I didn't take offense at it. Perhaps under an older and sterner boss he would have been rather afraid to give expression to his views. However, he certainly was valuable to me.

The conversation ended there, because the salesman from the Cincinnati Pencil Sharpener Company came in again. I didn't wait for him to say anything, but beckoned to him, and said:

"I can give you a little time now. I was really busy before, and I am afraid I spoke a little more sharply than I meant to."

"That's all right, Mr. Black," he replied. "I think I owe you an apology for losing my temper. A man in my position can't afford to lose his temper. I'll tell you now my proposition. Mr. Sirle of Hardware[Pg 86] Times told me you were a coming man in the business and suggested I show you this line."

"Well," I replied hesitatingly, "it seems to me that a pencil sharpener is not just the thing for a hardware man to sell."

"Mr. Black," he responded, "I am not going to try to persuade you what a hardware store should or should not sell; but I want to show you, with your permission, what you can make by handling this line. I have spent most of the day around here calling on some of the residents and other people. I have taken orders for eighteen of these pencil sharpeners. I will turn these orders over to you and you can deliver them and make the profit on them."

He passed me over eighteen orders for the dollar Cincinnati Pencil Sharpener, "to be delivered by the local hardware store."

"These sharpeners," he continued, "cost you 69¢ each f. o. b. Cincinnati. We will turn these orders over to you on the condition that you buy an additional eighteen. That is three dozen in all. In addition to this, if you wish to use this 'ad' in your local paper"—and here he showed me a very attractive advertisement for the pencil sharpener—"which will cost $4.00 an issue in both your papers—"

"How do you know?" I broke in quickly.

"Because we found out before we came here.—We will pay half the cost of three insertions. You notice the 'ad.' is already prepared, except for filling in your name. We don't provide electrotypes because, if we did, your local paper might not have the type to harmonize with the rest of the 'ad.,' so that it would look like a regular filled-in affair; but by[Pg 87] having the paper use the nearest type to this that they have, the advertisement has the stamp of your own individuality."

That was a pretty good thought, it seemed to me.

Well, the upshot of it was that I bought the three dozen and agreed to run the advertisement on the Monday, Wednesday and Friday following the arrival of the sharpeners.

I shook hands with him as he left the store, and couldn't help thinking that my foolish haste and rudeness might have lost me what I was convinced would be a valuable agency to me.

As he left the store—Mr. Downs was his name—he gave me a little booklet, which he said might refresh my memory on a few points which I was doubtless familiar with. The booklet was entitled "A few reminders on selling methods for Cincinnati Pencil Sharpeners." It outlined methods of approaching schools, private houses, business offices, etc., giving samples of form letters and a whole lot of useful selling information.

It seemed to me on looking it over that no one could help buying those pencil sharpeners!

It never occurred to me, until after he had left the store, to ask about the quality of the sharpener and I wondered why, and then I realized that I had bought the pencil sharpeners, not because of their quality, but because of the sales plan which had already been worked out for me.

If other concerns, who sent salesmen to see me, had presented worked-out plans like these they would have had more business from me. I don't know how it was, but I seemed to be rushed all the time with[Pg 88] so many little things that I hadn't had the time to try to think out plans and ideas for selling; and the fact that it was easy for me to go ahead to sell these pencil sharpeners was the main thing that induced me to buy them.

Larsen was unquestionably pleased, and the man had hardly gone out of the store when he said:

"Couldn't one of our fellers go to folks and sell some? . . . And couldn't we sell pencils, . . . and while we are about it—"

"For heaven's sake, Larsen," I cried, "you're trying to run me off my feet!"

The thought of sending salesmen out to get business for a retail store had never occurred to me, although on thinking it over it seemed so reasonable that I decided to think it over some more, and maybe I would send one of the boys out to see if he could not drum up some business on those pencil sharpeners, and perhaps some other things.

[Pg 89]

Larsen was a bully good fellow, but I found that in one way he was hurting the help, as his habit of swearing seemed to have been caught by the other fellows in the store.

Somewhat with fear and trembling I got the force all together one night and gave them a little talk on business conduct. Goodness knows I felt quite incompetent to speak about it, but I felt that it was necessary, particularly as I had noticed Jones and Wilkes swearing badly, and even doing it when there were customers in the store. From the language they used, it was evident that Larsen was the source of inspiration. I spoke to them somewhat like this:

"It's only a few weeks ago, fellows, since I was a clerk at Barlow's, so I know how you fellows feel and think, because I thought very much like you do now. You know there are certain things which a boss realizes which an employee doesn't. I really want you fellows to know that I want to help you in any way I can."

Larsen chipped in here, saying:

"I know he does that!"

I silenced him, however, and went on:

"You fellows represent this store when you are in[Pg 90] it and out of it. The way you conduct yourself is to the public the way this store conducts itself. For instance, if I were to get drunk nights, that would reflect on the store, wouldn't it?"

They nodded in agreement.

"Now, if I were to be using bad language all the time, that would reflect on the store also, wouldn't it?"

Again they nodded yes, but not with the same emphasis as before.

"There's one thing," I continued, "that we all have to learn to stop. It is so easy to slip into bad language that we use it before we realize it; but it is a bad habit and one that, I am sure, does hurt the standing of the business. So I am going to ask you fellows, for one thing, to stop using bad language in and out of the store. I'll go further, and say I will not allow it in the store at all; and if I find any one swearing, either about something or at something, I shall put a black mark against his name.

"Now," I continued, and here I brought out a little tin box, "I have put a dollar in this box to start a fund. At Christmas any money that is in this box we will turn over to the Christmas Tree Fund run by The Enterprise every year. If any of you fellows catch me swearing, tell me, and I'll put a quarter in the box. If any of you other fellows are caught swearing I think you ought to put something in the box—if it is only a dime or a nickel, even. You understand," I said, "that there is nothing compulsory about this, but it should be a bit of good fun to keep check on each other in that way, and if any one of us forgets himself and lets loose some language that isn't proper English, he may console himself with knowing[Pg 91] that his flow of language may mean a new doll for some poor kiddie. Is that a go?" I asked.

Larsen chirped right up and said:

"You bet it is! It's one good h—— of a—" he grinned sheepishly, put his hand in his pocket, and dropped a quarter in the box, while a howl of laughter went up from the other fellows.

That one laugh seemed to break the ice, and for the first time we all seemed to have a good understanding of each other. They all pledged themselves to a fine of a dime every time they swore.

"There is one other thing I am going to say at this time," I continued, when that question had been settled, "and that is that every Monday evening I am going to have a general meeting of all men who have done their duty during the week. It will last for three-quarters of an hour only, and I shall look upon it as a kind of directors' meeting.

"You know," I said, "that directors get paid for every meeting they attend. Now, I am going to pay all you fellows half a dollar for attending this directors' meeting every Monday.

"You will be at liberty to say anything you wish. You can roast the store policy, or me, or any one of us here, and whatever takes place at this meeting will be considered merely as an outside affair and nothing to affect our relationship in the business. In other words, you have a free hand to go as far as you like in that meeting and know that there will be no kick from me on it.

"Next Monday we'll all get together and talk things over generally. If any of you have any suggestions to make, shoot them along next Monday. A week[Pg 92] from Monday, however, we'll name one definite thing for discussion among ourselves."

I gave the boys a cigar each and the meeting adjourned.

I felt that that night's work was well worth while, for I soon noticed a little different attitude in the men. Eighty cents, however, went the first day into our "swear box." I began to wonder whether their dimes or whether their bad language would hold out the longest.

The idea seemed pretty simple, after it had been tried, and found to be a success, but it wasn't such a simple thing for me to think up. It had started when Betty read in a paper about how the inmates of a prison were given a voice in the running of it, and that had set me thinking about giving the employees a hand in running the business, and the plan grew out of that. I had been convinced from the start that it would work out well.

A customer had come into the store one day and asked for an 8-in. aluminum saucepan. Jones had waited on her, and had replied:

"Sorry, madam, but we are out of that size."

The customer had turned and left, and I had watched her make a bee line for Stigler's. Then and there I began to consider whether it would not have been possible to have sold her something, instead of allowing her to turn away. I reasoned that, while she asked for an 8-in. saucepan, she might have been just as well satisfied with a 7-in. or a 9-in. or something else. Jones had not, however, made any attempt to see if something else would suit her. I reasoned that there were also many cases like this coming up every[Pg 93] week, and that if we could only outline some standard method of handling such cases, it would mean quite a lot of sales saved—and, better still, in customers saved. That customer who went out, if she found what she asked for at Stigler's, would probably figure that we did not have a very complete stock, and, in any case, when we forced a customer to buy somewhere else it tended to cultivate the habit of trading there.

I figured that here was a good subject to bring up for our meeting the following Monday, and I sat down to work out some general rule to cover such situations.

It took a long time for my inexperienced mind to put in writing that I wanted to say, but finally, with the help of Betty, I evolved the following, and then, deciding that it was such an important matter that it ought not to be delayed until the next Monday, I had it typewritten, and gave a copy to each of the force.

This is what I wrote:

I was really pleased with myself when I heard an animated discussion on this new rule. Jones exclaimed:

"Jiminny Christmas, the Boss has got more sense than I thought he had!"

I told Betty that, when I got home, and she immediately fingered all my vest buttons.

"What's that for?" I asked.

"I think," she said gravely, but with a twinkle in her eye, "you had better take off your vest and let me fasten those buttons with wires, or else you'll be bursting them, through swelling with pride!"

[Pg 95]

I met Barlow one morning taking his "constitutional." While I was working for him we fellows always used to laugh at his plan of going for a walk every day for fifteen or twenty minutes. We used to think it was a freak notion of his for keeping in health.

Barlow shook hands with me and asked me how business was going. I told him that sales were picking up very slowly. Then he asked me:

"And how is friend Stigler affecting you now?"

I told him about the scheme I had been working on Stigler.

"But," I concluded, "I don't bother much with thinking about him now."

"That's excellent!" he exclaimed. "He isn't doing any too well, I know, and he has some time on his hands to talk. You forget him as much as possible and just go ahead and 'saw wood.'"

"That's what I'm trying to do. But I'm still keeping up that plan of marking down the goods in the window for an hour in the morning until he cuts his goods."

Barlow chuckled at that: "It is amusing," he said, "that Stigler hasn't yet realized that you are not cutting your own prices but merely making him cut his!"

"But, really," I said, "so much is always happening[Pg 96] that I've forgotten almost everything but business."

"I'm very glad to hear it, Dawson," he replied, "and you'll find that, as long as you are going on the right track, that same spirit will continue. I find business so crowded with interesting things that I can hardly tear myself away from it at night."

"I notice, though," I said, with a sly smile, "that you still take your half hour's constitutional every morning."

"Surely you know what I do that for?"

"What is it, if it isn't to keep yourself in trim or something of that kind?"

"I'll tell you, Dawson: A man can't be in the same surroundings long without becoming blind to their physical aspects. If I were to stay in the store all the time, I would soon become blind to poor window displays, to disorderliness and neglect about the store—to those hundred and one defects which creep up in a store and which react unfavorably on customers. So I make a point every day of putting on my hat and walking around a few blocks, looking at the other stores, familiarizing myself with the window trims, keeping a line on new ideas, and the like. And by the way, Dawson, I have obtained some of my best ideas of window trimming from displays in other stores—not hardware stores, I mean. I had a splendid idea for a trim one time from a display at Middal's." Middal ran a stationery store. "Tony once had an arrangement of fruit in his window that gave me a good idea for a tool display.

"I tell you, Dawson, there are good ideas lying around everywhere, and it only requires a little imagination to adapt them to your own uses. It's a poor[Pg 97] sort of merchant who cannot use the good ideas from other lines of business and adapt them to his own requirements."

"So that's why you take your morning constitutional?" I asked. "To see what good ideas you can pick up!"

"Yes, I see what good ideas I can pick up, but that's only one part of it. My main idea is to let my eyes see something other than what they are in the habit of seeing. I want them to get away from looking at the environment of the store, so that when I return from my 'constitutional,' as you call it, I can look at my store as if I were a casual visitor. Every time I approach it I say to myself, 'What would I, as a stranger, think of that store?' And I find that, by looking at it in this way, I keep my viewpoint fresh. I quickly notice any flaws in the store management."

"Then all that time I was working with you and thought, with all the other fellows, that it was a crank idea of yours, you were really following out a definite store policy, as it were?"

"Exactly."

"Then," I blurted out, "why didn't you ever tell us what it was for? We could perhaps have done the same thing!"

"I never told you," he answered, "because I felt it wouldn't help you fellows, and I didn't think it wise to tell my help what I was doing. You see my point?" he said, with a smile.

"I feel foolish to think of disagreeing with you, Mr. Barlow," I said, "but candidly, I think it would have paid to have told us. I believe a boss gets more out of his men when he tells them what he is working for.[Pg 98] I think, too, that many bosses are afraid to let the men see the wheels go round. I may be wrong, but I am going on the plan of telling the fellows as much as possible about the business. I believe that the more they know about the business, the more interest they will take in it, and the better they will be able to work in its interests."

We were strolling toward my store and were just passing Stigler's at that minute. Stigler was standing at the door, and, as we passed, he said with a grin:

"Good morning, gentlemen. Hatching up a new conspiracy to corner the hardware trade in the town? If so, don't fail to let me in. I'm always looking for an easy thing, you know. K-ha!"

Barlow turned around with a laugh, and said:

"You always will have your bit of fun, won't you, Stigler?"

I was too mad to say anything.

"I'm surprised you can joke with him like that!" I said to Barlow. But then he turned around, and I saw a snap in his eye, which told me that he was really angry, just as much as I was, but had learned to control his feelings better.

Well, we shook hands, and I left him to go into the store. His closing remark was:

"Stick to it, Dawson! Call on me if I can help you at any time, and, while you don't want to be spying on Stigler, of course, keep your eye open."

But when we parted I suddenly decided, instead of going into the store, to try Barlow's plan and take a stroll around the block and then try to view the store as if I were a customer. I felt a little disappointed, then, at the general appearance of the outside of the[Pg 99] store. More paint would certainly improve it. In fact, it was a kind of joke to find on the big side door an old sign, the letters half worn off and the rest dirty and dusty, reading:

"Fresh paint improves your property. Use Star Brand."

I was still handling the Star Brand, but had never bothered about the sign! I had the sign taken down right away, and determined there and then to see the landlord, and get him to paint the outside of the store.

Barlow was certainly no fool!

[Pg 100]

Soon after my talk with Barlow, I planned a big sale to reduce my stock. I was most anxious to reduce it $2,000.00 worth, and at the same time I wanted to see if I could not hit back at Stigler. He was keeping up his price-cutting campaign, although he had evidently realized the fact that I took my cut prices off the goods as soon as he cut his, so that he had begun to put the same kind of goods in his window that I did, but cut them about 10 or 15 per cent. from the regular prices.

I had spoken to Jock McTavish about this, and had suggested that perhaps I ought to cut all goods down to cost for a little while, for apparently Stigler could sell at a 15 per cent. reduction and still make a profit.

"No," said Jock. "Dinna ye ken that he loses money when he cuts his goods that much?"

"Why, how can that be?" I asked. "Suppose he buys something for $1.00, and the regular price is $1.50. He cuts that 15 per cent.—he would be selling it at—at $1.27. He would make 27¢ profit!"

"Ye're wrong," replied Jock. "The cost o' the goods is no the bare invoice price, but the cost plus the cost o' selling. Noo, as ye ken, it will cost ye round aboot 30 per cent. on cost to sell your goods, so that those goods would cost $1.00 plus 30¢, the cost o' selling; and when he sells them for $1.27 he'll be losing 3¢ on every sale."

[Pg 101]"But he could care for his overhead on his regular stock," I replied.

"Verra foolish reasoning," snapped Jock, "for a mon to mak' a part of his sales carry the freight for aw o' 'em!"

I had thought about this afterward, and finally had been able to see how, if he cut his goods 15 per cent., he couldn't make anything on the deal.

However, several people had been saying that Stigler had got me "on the run," so I decided it was up to me to have a whack at him. Therefore, I planned what I called an "Automatic Sale." I picked out a whole lot of stock, goods a little bit damaged, lines that I had no sale for at all—I found a lot of things which the two previous owners of the store bought and stored away and apparently never did anything with. I found about a gross of painted rubber balls; I found a lot of juvenile printing outfits; and padlocks—I dug up about three gross of padlocks, of the strangest patterns you could think of! I found eleven different makes of safety razors, and there were only two of them I had ever sold any quantity of. I planned to reduce the number of lines as much as I could and just push the real sellers—put my money into goods that would sell quickly and so increase my turn-over.

All the five-cent articles that I wanted to dispose of in this sale I tied in pairs—two for ten cents.

I intended to run four narrow tables down the center of the store. The first one was to contain ten-cent goods, the next twenty-five cent, the next fifty-cent, and the last one all the odds and ends at various prices.

[Pg 102]My idea was to run the sale on the plan of automatic reduction of price. I had got the idea from a magazine which had said that, if you could offer anything to people which appealed to the sporting instinct that is in every one of us, you would attract attention. So I decided to try to appeal to this sporting instinct by automatically reducing the goods one cent in every ten cents every day, until the goods were reduced to nothing,—and then give away what was left.

I had talked this over with the boys at our Monday's weekly meeting—which, by the way, had been a most interesting one and continued for over an hour instead of the three-quarters of an hour we had planned—and they had been very enthusiastic over it. I had also talked it over with Betty and Jock and Fellows. While Jock shook his head and said, "Ye're takkin' a big risk, mon," Betty had said, "Go ahead and do it, boy!" Fellows just said, "Bully, you're going to be a real man before you're through!"

Larsen seemed to be getting younger every day. When I came out of the store the day after I had announced my plans, he was talking over the idea with the other boys in a very excited and enthusiastic manner.

The sale was planned to start in two weeks hence, and, during those two weeks, car signs were displayed in all our trolleys, worded like this:

[Pg 103]In addition to this, Larsen and Wilkes tacked these signs on all the trees and blank spaces they could about the town.

Just one week before the sale started, I put the following "ad." in both our local papers for three days, without any change of copy:

I ordered from the printer four circulars which were clipped together with wire. One sheet talked about the ten-cent goods, another about the twenty-five-cent, another about the fifty, and the fourth about the mixed table. The sheet explanatory of the twenty-five cent goods was as follows:[Pg 104]—

[Pg 105]On the reverse side was the following list:—

Over each table I had a big card, of which the following is a sample:[Pg 106]—

Jock had said: "Mon, they'll all wait till the last day and then come and steal the goods awa' frae ye!"

"No," Betty had replied, "many will buy, before the goods are reduced much, for fear somebody else will buy them first."

Larsen suggested having a big sign in the window headed:

"WATCH THIS LIST. ARTICLES SOLD OUT WILL BE POSTED ON IT."

"You see, Boss," he had said, "the folks'll see a number of things put on the list. They'll figure they'd better not wait else what they want will be sold."

[Pg 107]Fellows chimed in with, "Tell you what to do, Black. Put in just two or three of some articles, so that by the end of the first day you'll be able to post up some goods that are sold out."

Jock had a further suggestion, "Ye've got an unusual plan there, laddie; why don't ye tell the newspapers aboot it. Maybe they'll give ye a stor-ry in reference to it."

"That's a good idea," I had replied, "I'll try it."

"Don't ye think," he continued, "that it would pay ye tae put a list in the papers each day o' the goods that are sold, and call it 'Too late to buy the following at Dawson Black's Automatic Sales—Some one else got ahead o' ye',' or-r something like that?"

I decided to adopt that plan and that I would call on the newspaper people to see if I could not get a write-up on the sale from them.

I really was getting anxious for the sale to start so that I could see how it would come off. I felt that I was taking a big risk, since, if it failed, I would lose a few hundred dollars. But, even then, I would turn some dead stock into cash, and I remembered that, at the trade convention, one fellow had said a dollar in the till was worth two dollars of unsalable goods on the shelves, "for," said he, "if you turn that two dollars' worth of goods into a dollar cash and you turn that dollar over three and a half times in a year, you are going to earn a profit on three and a half dollars' worth of live stuff instead of the questionable profit on two dollars' worth of dead stuff!"

I guess we are all gamblers at heart, for every one, even the Mater, had become interested and excited over my first attempt at a big sale.

[Pg 108]I hadn't quite decided whether to send the circulars by mail, or to have them delivered to every home in town by messenger; but was inclined to adopt the latter plan.

Fellows suggested, "Why don't you get some pretty girls to go around and deliver them? They would make a hit!"

"Do you think so?" flashed back Betty. "That's just where you're mistaken, Mr. Smarty—if you think a woman is going to be tickled to have a pretty girl come up to the door: send a homely one and it might work!"

Aren't women queer?

[Pg 109]

I would like to be able to say that there were big sales on the first day of the automatic sale. All the goods on those four sales' counters had been reduced one cent in ten—ten-cent articles to nine cents, and so on—but, on the first day, we took in only $36.00 from those counters!

I found that the invoice cost of all the goods which I had put on in the sale was $1,364.00. If I could only get that amount in cash out of them, I would be more than satisfied, for I would have turned into money a lot of stock which was old, damaged or such slow sellers as not to be worth keeping. With the money I could buy goods that would sell quickly and thus increase my rate of turn-over.

But only $36.00 worth sold the first day! And the sale of other goods had been unusually slow, also. In fact, it was the worst day I had had since I bought the store.

Not very promising for the beginning of a sale, was it? But Betty, bless her heart, said, "Wait until Monday or Tuesday and you'll find things will go along all right. The prices are not yet reduced enough to make people eager to buy."

Although the goods on the bargain counters had been reduced 20 per cent., only $47.00 worth went the next day!

[Pg 110]Larsen shook his head and said, "It may come out all right." He was a regular Job's comforter!

That night, I said to Betty, "Perhaps it would be wise to call the sale off, and put some of the goods back into stock again."

She replied: "Whatever you do, don't call the sale off! If there are any lines that are really good, you might quietly put some of them back, but don't call the sale off! It would hurt you too much. By the way," she added, "I wonder what Stigler's window is covered up for to-day?"

I had noticed that as I came home. He had pulled the shades down in his window, and, although it was 8:30 when I passed the store, the lights were still burning inside. I had an uncomfortable feeling that he was going to do something to me.

I wondered if he was going after me on prices even worse than before! I did not sleep very well that night. It's easy to say "what's the use of losing sleep over a thing," but, when a man finds the bottom knocked out of his business because of competition, plans a big sale and it starts off as a hopeless fizzle, after an outlay of over a hundred dollars for advertising, he can't help but worry! The man isn't born that can find things slipping away as I had and not worry over it!

Betty was a real comfort. She said:—"Don't you see, boy dear, that's just what you need, a lot of trouble?"

"Huh," I replied, "I'm certainly getting what I need, good and plenty!"

She smiled, and replied, "That's right, keep your sense of humor. One of my teachers once said that[Pg 111] a sense of humor is a safety valve which prevents us blowing up from the pressure of too much trouble. You're going to pull through this all right, and you'll be a better and a bigger man for the experience!"

What would I have done without her! I wonder, if the big business men of the country were to tell the truth, how much of their success they would owe to some quiet little woman who gave them the right kind of encouragement and admonition? Whatever success I may have had I'll be frank enough to admit that I would not have succeeded if it hadn't been for Betty.

On the third day of the Sale, we kept the store open till 11 o'clock, and it was midnight before I left.

When I had passed Stigler's that morning I had found his windows piled high with kitchen goods, on which were labels with the regular retail price. I had stood at the window and looked at the different prices to be sure that they were genuine, and, surely enough, the prices were regular. But then I noticed a big sign, hung from above, which read:

I was doing some pretty quick thinking while I was standing there, for, while only about half the goods in my sale were kitchen utensils, I certainly had made a big push on those goods.

[Pg 112]At that moment Stigler came along from behind me, walked right up to me, and said:

"Howdy?"

"How are you, Stigler?" I returned.

"Fine!" he said. "Enjoying the weather! How do you like my little window, eh? I'm glad to see yer take an interest in what we are doing! Of course, if you ain't satisfied with what you see there, come right along inside and I'll show yer me books!"

"I was just passing your store, Stigler, and, naturally, I looked in your window."

"Sure—sure," he said, nodding his head sarcastically, "you fellers have a habit of passing the store pretty often, don't yer? Quite a clever stunt you are putting up there, with that automatic give-away-nothin' idea. Kinder thought I'd start in the cutting line myself a bit. How d'ye like it?"

"I don't know what I have ever done to you that you should make such a dead set on me."

"N-no?" he returned with a drawl. "Well, I'll just tell yer, young feller. I've just kinder got a fancy to get some more business, and as some of the trade seems to be floatin' around kind o' easy like, I thought I'd just nail it down. And if by any chance some dear competitor"—and his lips curled in derision as he said this—"happens to get in the way, well!—I can kinder be sorry for him like, and perhaps give him a job sometime if he wants one."

Then I had lost my temper.

"You're a four-flushing cur, and just as sure as my name is Black, I'll give you a run for your money! If you think you can scare me, you're mistaken! And if you want a fight, by George, I'll give it to you!"

[Pg 113]Stigler leaned against the corner of his window and said:

"My, somebody's been feedin' yer meat, ain't they?" and then he turned and walked into his store.

The first thing I did when I got to the store was to tell Larsen I wanted to put a dollar in the "swear box," and then I told him the incident. He shook his head thoughtfully, and said:

"Too bad, Boss, too bad."

I wished that I had kept control over my tongue! I felt that Stigler had had the best of the scrap that morning. I felt that he had put it all over me. I had felt like a scolded boy, and I had probably looked like one as I marched away from his store with my ears and face burning, a-tremble in my limbs.

Larsen had quickly written a sign which said, "30 per cent. reduction to-day on all goods offered in our automatic sale!" Then he asked me if I could manage to spare him for a couple of hours.

"What for?" I asked.

"I tell you, Boss," he said. "We got a lot of good carpenter tools in the sale. I want to go to every carpenter in town and tell 'em what we got. Stigler tries to get sales in carpenters' tools. He got a mad at you because you put in more stock. I'll tell 'em they can buy carpenters' tools for 30 per cent. less regular price. That'll hit Stigler where he lives!"

I caught a bit of Larsen's enthusiasm. Isn't it remarkable how a man over fifty like Larsen could have the energy and enthusiasm he showed? I really thought he was getting younger every day, while I was getting older!

[Pg 114]When he came back to the store, about 11:30 he was smiling.

"How did you make out?" I asked.

"Fine! I got over $60.00 of orders. I promise to put the tools one side. The folks'll call later in day. Some that didn't order said they goin' to come in."

"That's great!" I exclaimed, and my spirits immediately rose.

"Any business this morning?" Larsen asked.

"Yes," I replied, "four lines sold out."

"Kitchen goods?"

"Yes, all of them. You know that cheap line of enameled frying pans?"

"Yep."

"Well, a woman came in and bought twelve of them!"

"Twelve?"

"Yep. And then another one came in and bought six! They've been selling in bunches," and I chuckled. "What are you looking so glum at?" I asked him suddenly.

"We got a hole in our plan," he returned. "We oughta say no person buy more than one of anything. I bet them frying pans in Stigler's now. They was good at the price. He couldn't buy 'em wholesale to-day for it. I bet he sell 'em off to-day, and we got none. He got one of our big cards and plays it himself."

"I've got the list of goods sold out ready to put in the window," I said, and passed him over a card on which I had listed the goods which were all gone.

"I think," he said, "we better put some more frying pans in the sale and not say we sold out."

[Pg 115]"That's a good idea," I returned; and we put a half dozen more of our regular stock on the 50-cent counter. Then we agreed to be cautious about selling any more articles in "bunches."

To my surprise, our sales for that third day on the "automatic" goods were $421.00, so the first three days of our sale netted $504.00. That sounded encouraging.

If I could get another $860.00 for the balance of the sale, I would not have done so badly. I decided that I had planned right in having the third day sale come on Saturday, for that was always a big day with us. The reduction had been a substantial one, and yet everything that was sold had been sold for more than the invoice price.

Our tool sale had been unusually large; Larsen's trip to the carpenters had helped that out a lot.

After the store was closed we made a list of the articles which were sold out and posted them in the window so that they would be seen the next day. Over sixty different lines were sold out, and the list was quite a formidable one.

Then we drew another big sign, which we placed in the window, saying:

Stigler springing that 25 per cent. reduction sale on[Pg 116] kitchen goods had unfortunately spoilt a lot of business which I felt sure we would have had otherwise. We had overcome some of the loss, however, by the extra push we had made on carpenters' tools.

When I told Betty about it after getting home, she said:

"Well, Stigler didn't waste any time getting after you, did he?"

"No," I said with a grin.

"And do you know that he says now that your sale has proved a fizzle and that practically all your goods have been put back in stock again? . . . Quiet," she said, putting her hand on my shoulder, for I was about to explode with temper. "I suppose no man can be successful without having a lot of people throw mud at him."

That evening I was so tired that I fell asleep in my chair. Betty woke me up by putting her arm around my neck, and saying:

"You had better go along to bed now, boy dear. Here, drink this—it will make you rest better"—and I drank a glass of hot milk she had prepared for me, and went to bed.

On Monday we had a wonderful clearance. Most of the goods were sold, and our total for the four days' sale was $1,090.00!

The boys were all dead tired. I had sent Wilkes about 7 o'clock to get some hot coffee and sandwiches for us, for we had a continuous crowd of customers in the store and not one of the store crowd would think of leaving. We took drinks of coffee and bites of sandwiches in between serving customers, and the coffee was all cold before we got through with it!

[Pg 117]You will remember my telling that I had discharged Myricks and that he had gone to work for Stigler. Well, Stigler had fired him after a couple of weeks, saying that he had found out all he knew and had no further use for him. Myricks had been looking for a job ever since, and, as I knew I would have to have some extra help for the sale, I put him on again. In fact, I had told him that, if he behaved himself I might be able to use him for the winter, for it had been tremendously hard work for our little force to take care of the business, and I had felt that if we had another clerk it would relieve me to do some more planning, and might also allow Jones or Larsen to do some soliciting for business; for I hadn't forgotten what that pencil sharpener man had told me, and had decided that, after the sale I would go.

Well, Myricks had started on Thursday morning, and had seemed to be working well. I had noticed, however, on the following Monday, that he didn't ring up one of his sales. He had sold over $6.00 worth of goods and I had seen him put the money in his pocket and go after another customer.

I called him to one side, later in the day, and said:

"Myricks, why didn't you ring up that sale?"

He went red, and then white, and said:

"Er—er—you see—I'll tell you—that other customer was impatient and I wanted to get to him quickly and I thought it would save time and I could ring it up later."

"Don't do it!" I replied sharply. "Ring up every sale as you make it!"

We were too busy to dispense with him then, but I wondered—I wondered[Pg 118]—

When we closed the store Tuesday no more goods were left! The sales that day had been $427.00.

Of course when I say there were no more goods left, I mean there were perhaps thirty or forty odd items left, but I was certain that they would be all sold out the next day.

The total for the sale had been $1,517.00. My advertising had cost me $127.00, so that my net cash from the sale was $1,390.00. That showed me a cash profit of $24.00. But, gee whiz!—didn't that bank account look good!

I planned to take up that note of $1,000.00 at the bank, right away. It would seem good to get rid of that. And I was going to Barrington and pay $250.00 on that $1,250.00 loan for which he had taken a mortgage on my farm.

Gosh, it did seem good to have some money, although after I had taken $1,250.00 from $1,390.00, there wouldn't be much real cash left. Still, I hadn't been buying much, and my bills were unusually small that month.

When I got home I rushed into the house, took hold of Betty and swung her around several times, and sang my little song—"Half-price day is over and no more goods are left!" We behaved like a couple of kids.

She thought I would be making a mistake to pay off that thousand dollars at the bank. She thought I ought to leave $500.00 of it, for she said I wouldn't have enough money to pay my month's bills and would have to borrow again.

"Well, they'll let me do it, if necessary," I said; "and besides, I'm not paying interest on what I am not borrowing."

[Pg 119]"Perhaps you're right," she said with a laugh, "and now come and get your dinner."

Dinner, at 10:30 at night! However, what's meal time when you're busy? How I pitied those poor fellows who don't get heart and soul into their work. Time surely does fly when you do! What a shirker I had been when I had worked for Barlow! The days had seemed long then.

I gave all my fellows a special bonus that week for the work they had done. I gave Larsen $10.00, Jones $6.00 and Wilkes $3.00—that is, an extra half week's pay.

Myricks had gone. In spite of being busy I had gotten rid of him that Tuesday. I had caught him again putting money in his pocket, and Mr. Pinkham, who bought a saw, also told me that he had noticed Myricks didn't ring up the money.

I had kept my eye on Myricks, and then, when there was a little lull in trade, I had called him into my little office and ordered him to turn out his pockets.

"What's that for?" he asked impudently.

"I want to see how much money you have got there," I said.

"I don't see that it's anybody's business what money I have got in my pockets," he replied.

"Well, it has something to do with me," I returned sternly, "for you told me yesterday you were carrying my money in your pockets. Now, I insist on knowing what you have got in your pockets."

"All I've got is money of my own, and I don't see that it's any of your business!"

"You are going to turn out your pockets before you leave this office," I said angrily. My voice was raised[Pg 120] and the others in the store were gazing in our direction. "If not, I'll call a policeman."

"Call him in and be damned," he said, and he struck at me.

I lost my temper, and for once I was glad of it, for I landed on him and hit him fair and square under the jaw. He fell against the desk, upsetting a vase full of flowers that Betty had put there. He got up, holding his head, and blood was trickling from a cut in his cheek where he had caught the edge of the desk.

I was so raging mad that I was prepared for almost anything.

"Now, damn you!" I said with a snarl, "turn out your pockets quick!"

He did so, and I found $37.00 there.

"It's my money," he said surlily. "It's my money! You touch that money and I'll have the law on you!"

I picked up the money, put it in my pocket, and said:

"Now, I'll give you just five minutes to get clear out of my sight! Before you go, let me tell you that customers have seen you putting money in your pocket, and I have seen you also. Just let me have one peep from you, now or any other time, and I'll have you in jail! Now, beat it!"

I opened the door and he slunk out.

"I'll get you yet," he growled as he left.

I had lost my temper, I knew I had; but I was mighty glad I had; for I felt if I hadn't I wouldn't have given him the lesson he deserved. And incidentally, I had learned another lesson, and that is, never rehire a discharged employee. Then and there I determined that, so long as I was in business, if an em[Pg 121]ployee ever left me for any reason whatever, I would never reinstate him. He would be through forever.

"I WAS SO RAGING MAD THAT I WAS PREPARED FOR ALMOST ANYTHING"

When I got home that night, Betty remarked:

"Why, look at the knuckles on your hand! They have blood on them! What have you done?"

"Oh, I just knocked into the cash register $37.00 which was walking out of the door," I returned jauntily. And then I told her the whole story.

She came over and kissed me and said:

"Good boy!" and her eyes flashed as she said it. "I'm proud of you!"

Those four words meant more to me than the success of this sale.

Betty and I went to Boston the next day. I wanted to call at Bates & Hotchkin's to buy a few things I needed, and also I wanted to call on Mr. Barker, to whom Mr. Sirle had given me a card of introduction some time ago. I intended that we should have a nice little dinner, and take in a show and stay at a good hotel for the night and come back the next day. All by way of celebration.

"You are an extravagant man," said Betty severely when I told her this. "What train do we leave by? I'll be ready."

[Pg 122]

We had a great time in Boston. In the evening we went to see "Pollyanna" and I told Betty I had fallen in love with Patricia Collinge.

"I'll get jealous," she said, and squeezed my arm.

When we reached the city I called on Bates & Hotchkin, ordered some goods, and told them about the sale. I had a talk with Mr. Peck, the credit man who called on me the time I had had trouble paying my bills.

"That was fine," he said, "but pretty risky work—pretty risky work. You succeeded with it all right this time, but next time I wouldn't risk so much on one sale.

"By the way," he asked, "how much did you sell during the period of the sale, other than the reduced-price goods, or does that $1,517.00 include the sale of regular goods as well?"

"Oh, no," I replied. "That represents the money we took in from the goods which were reduced. I haven't figured yet what the sales for general goods were the first three days of this week, but I know that last week we sold $824.00 worth of goods, so that we had a sale on general goods of $320.00. Our sale really helped rather than hindered our general turn-over."

"Splendid," he said. "To what do you attribute mostly the success of the sale?"

[Pg 123]"Well, I don't know. But I do know that the enthusiasm of my fellows helped a lot, and the help I got from Fellows of the Flaxon Advertising Company. In fact, I think everybody had something to do with it. I know Mrs. Black did," turning around to Betty.

"I usually find," said Mr. Peck, "that, whether it's success or failure, there's a woman at the bottom of it."

The next morning I went to see Mr. Barker and presented the card which Mr. Sirle had given me. Barker had a fine, big store on Summit Street. I rather expected to get just an ordinary, formal reception, for I figured that he must be a very busy man. To my surprise, he gave me a lot of time. He was a most interesting man. I apologized for taking up his time, saying:

"I mustn't keep you, Mr. Barker, for you are such a busy man and have a lot of things to attend to."

"Oh, no, indeed, Mr. Black," he said. "I always figure that the head of a business should always have plenty of time on his hands. I arrange my work so that I can go any time I wish to have a round at the links. I believe one of the earmarks of a true executive is his ability to slam down the lid of his desk—that is, assuming he is so old-fashioned as to have a roll-top desk—beastly things, they are. I think a roll-top desk is an invention of the devil to induce lazy people to shove work into pigeon holes instead of doing it! Roll-top desks are one of my pet aversions. As I was saying, I think one of the earmarks of a real executive is his ability to leave his business at any time and know that it will run safely. An executive must reduce work to routine as much as possible. He must[Pg 124] do the thinking and let others do the doing. It is easy enough to get people to do things when you tell them what to do. I remember," he said, reminiscently, "hearing a speaker once say that the value of a man, from his neck down, was limited to $2.50 a day, but, from his neck up, there was no limit to his value. Now, an executive uses his body from his neck up, to plan work for other fellows to do with their bodies below the neck."

"But, of course," I said, "you've a big business here. You can hire plenty of fellows to do all you want."

"True," he said, "but remember, it was not always a big business; and, however small your business may be, you can plan to let others do the less important work, and keep the more important work for yourself. Of course, the most important job any retailer has is to buy right, and to plan his sales policies and methods and advertising."

Mr. Barker's desk was on a kind of mezzanine floor, from which he could look all over the store, and while he was talking I noticed that his eyes constantly roved over it.

At one time he suddenly broke off in the middle of a sentence and pressed a button on his desk. A stenographer appeared and he asked her to send Riske to him. In a few minutes a young fellow appeared and stood before his desk.

"Jim," said Mr. Barker, "you had a customer a few minutes ago who wanted some automobile accessories."

"Yes, sir," replied Jim.

"When he came into the store he stood just inside the doorway, and kept glancing sidewise at his car?"

[Pg 125]"Yes, sir."

"Well, instead of going to him, you looked at him and waited for him to come over to you. Now, never do that again, for it is bad salesmanship. We want to express to our customers by our words and actions that we are glad to have them visit our store, and that we approach them more than half way. Now, for us to stand still and make a customer walk right up to us at the end of the counter is not expressing that attitude, is it?"

Jim was silent.

"Whenever a customer comes into the store, always go to him. The very act of walking toward the customer makes him feel more at ease; and incidentally, when you get a customer like the one you had, don't ask him to come to the rear of the store as you did, for he was nervous about his car. Instead, you should bring the article to him—that is, if it is some small article that can be easily brought.

"Now, this is apparently only a little matter, but you know most big things are made up of a bunch of little ones, aren't they? If you'll just remember that, Jim, I'll be much obliged to you."

And with this kindly admonition he dismissed Jim.

I wished I had the ability to give helpful suggestions like that.

I made some remark to Mr. Barker about that, and he said:

"If my salespeople are not successful, I am to blame, not they. I am in my position because I have, or am supposed to have, more knowledge of business and selling than they, and it is up to me to pass my knowledge out to them, and to help them to become better sales[Pg 126]men. I believe that, if ever a man wants to find out who is responsible for his failure, he should look at the fellow he shaves in the morning."

"But come," he said, putting on his hat, "won't you come and have lunch with me?"

And this big, busy retail merchant, who was not too big or too busy to take me, a little dealer in a small town to lunch, took me over to the Exeter House, where we had an excellent dinner, and a most enjoyable chat; after which he took me over to the association rooms, which I had for some time wanted to visit, where I met some other likeable fellows in the hardware business who happened to be in town.

I wished I could have stayed longer to talk with some of the interesting men there, but I felt we ought to get back to Farmdale; so I tore myself away, feeling, however, that our joy ride had proved to be of practical dollars-and-cents value to me.

[Pg 127]

My Monday night meetings were proving very beneficial, and one, in particular, had been very interesting. It had been something of an innovation.

The secretary of the hardware association had been in town, and I had asked him around to the house for lunch; and while there, I had told him about our weekly meetings. He thought it was an excellent idea.

"You are doing a good thing," he said, "and you'll get a lot closer to your boys. They work better for you, don't you know."

It was Betty who had suggested the idea. It hadn't occurred to me at all. She was in the kitchen, getting the lunch ready, and I didn't think she was paying any attention to what Mr. Field and I were talking about. Then, as she was placing the lunch of chops and grilled sweet potatoes (grilled as only Betty can grill them) on the table, she had remarked:

"If Mr. Field is staying in town to-night, why not ask him to attend your meeting with you?"

"That's a dandy idea!" I returned enthusiastically. "Will you come, Mr. Field?"

And the big, rosy-faced, jovial secretary chuckled and said:

"Very glad to."

I had been told a number of times that Mr. Field[Pg 128] was one of the best-natured men in the world, which perhaps accounted somewhat for his success. His readiness to comply with my request tended to show that what I had heard about him was true.

"And, boy dear," said Betty sweetly, "Mr. Field has several stores of his own. Why not make him an ex-officio member of the company for to-night? Perhaps he could give you some good ideas on selling."

"Say, that's bully!" I cried, smacking my knee. "I'll tell the boys this afternoon!"

Betty smiled:

"Wouldn't it be just as well to ask Mr. Field first, if he would do it?"

"Why, yes, of course," I replied, blushing. "How careless of me! You will, won't you, Mr. Field?"

"Only too glad to be of service," he returned, "if you think there is anything I can say that will help them."

"I'm sure there is," I said impetuously.

We then settled down to our lunch. A few minutes later Betty suggested:

"Won't it make it pretty late for Mr. Field to get his dinner after the meeting, since it doesn't start until 6:30?"

Then a brilliant idea struck me.

"Betty," I asked, "will you make us coffee and buy some doughnuts and send them down to the store about quarter past six? That will keep us from starving until the meeting is over."

Well, we had our coffee and doughnuts before the meeting started. Mr. Field had a chance to mix with the boys, and got them all into good humor. Then the meeting was called to order, and I announced that,[Pg 129] before Mr. Field began to talk, we would clean up any left-over matters.

I brought up the matter of the Cincinnati Pencil Sharpener agency. The boys seemed to fight shy of doing any outside selling, and I, in a fit of bravado—caused, I think, by the keen twinkle I saw in Mr. Field's eyes—said:

"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll go out myself to-morrow, and see what can be done with it. If I start the ball rolling, you fellows will follow it up all right, won't you?"

And this was agreed to—somewhat half-heartedly, I must say.

Wilkes, who was delivery and messenger boy, and general boy of all work, then asked if it wouldn't be a good idea to sell toys at Christmas time. Jones laughed at this; but Larsen said nothing. I, myself, thought the idea rather ridiculous, although I didn't say so, of course; but a glance at Mr. Field's face showed me that he didn't think the idea was foolish.

"Tell you what we'll do," I said. "Let's leave that until next week, for we want to have some good ideas from Mr. Field while we have him here."

Mr. Field, in his good-natured, friendly manner, started in by inviting us to interrupt him at any time and ask any questions we wanted, because he wasn't going to make a speech, but was just going "to talk."

I wish I had put down verbatim what he said; but, as I didn't I will outline the main points he brought out—and some dandy pointers on selling he gave us.

He was talking about courteous service to customers.

"Courtesy is something more than mere politeness,"[Pg 130] he said. "You have to have the real feeling of wishing to do something for the customer, and you have to show the customer you want to help him by every word and action. Such a feeling, don't you know, will make you, when you see a customer coming, go to him instead of standing still and waiting for him to come to you."

"That's just what Mr. Barker was telling me last week!" I exclaimed.

Mr. Field then spoke about introducing other lines to the customers while they were waiting.

"Have you ever noticed," he said, "when you go into a store to buy something and you are waiting for the parcel to be wrapped, or waiting for your change, that the salesman will usually make some remark about the weather, or talk about the ball game, or the election returns? That's all right and very interesting, perhaps, and it helps to make the customer like the salesman. But it would make the cash register work harder—and you know, boys, there's no Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Cash Registers—if, instead of talking about the weather, or something of that kind, the clerk talked about something that might make the cash register 'ting.' See what I mean, boys? Instead of saying, 'A nice day, isn't it?' why don't you say 'This is a nice safety razor,' or 'do you use a safety razor?'"

Larsen broke in with:

"You ask him to buy something after he got what he wants? He get mad? no?"

"Well," said Mr. Field, "he might, if you were to say to him, 'Wouldn't you like to buy this safety razor?' But, of course, you would merely pass the[Pg 131] safety razor over to him, as you mention it, saying, perhaps: 'This is a new kind of safety razor which works differently from the ordinary kind—what do you think of it?' You do not ask him to buy it; but you just try to get him interested in it. The difference between being interested in an article, and wanting to own it, is one of degree, and not of kind. See what I mean?

"There is another thing that's helped sales in my own stores very much—the use of suggestion. Whenever a customer buys anything, we always suggest something that can go with it. For instance, I sell stationery. Suppose a customer comes to our stationery counter and asks for a box of note paper. We always suggest post-cards, blotting paper, pen and ink, or anything else that is associated with the goods she has purchased.

"If a customer asked for a safety razor, don't you think it would be poor salesmanship not to offer him something else? A machine could do that much. But it takes a real salesman to sell him something else and I know you boys are real salesmen. You mustn't have the customer feel that he's been forced to buy something he doesn't want, but make him pleased with his new purchase. When you're asked for a safety razor, and have made this sale you should ask him what kind of shaving soap he uses, or tell him that you have some good shaving brushes which will help to make his shaving comfortable. If a man buys nails, suggest a hammer; if he buys screws, suggest a screw-driver. It doesn't matter what you're selling, there is always something you can suggest that will go with it, and which is quite natural to suggest. I tell you, boys, a[Pg 132] customer will very often thank you for reminding him of something that he wants."

Larsen brought up a problem, and the way Mr. Field answered it, I thought, was fine. Certainly it was something I never would have thought of, and I knew that none of the boys would have known how to get around it.

Said Larsen: "A lady, she come in the other day and ask for an oil lamp. I show her a nice one, bronze finish. But she says no, she want brass finish. We don't carry brass finished lamps—no call for 'em. I tell her bronze finish is better, keep cleaner and more stylish. But no, she won't have it. She want brass finish and I couldn't sell her. What would you do about it?"

"Of course," replied Mr. Field, "you can't sell to everybody. Some folks have certain likes and dislikes, and it's a waste of time to try to change their whims and fancies. I don't think I would have tried to swing her into line on the question of the finish of the lamp, I would have ignored that altogether and talked about some other advantages of the lamp. Do you see what I mean? Here, how's this? Instead of talking about the finish, why not say: 'Yes, madam, it's just a matter of taste whether you prefer brass or the bronze finish. Most people prefer the bronze and that's why we keep it. I know the brass finish looks well but, after all, it's only a small matter. Isn't it more important to get a lamp that does its work properly? Just notice this duplex burner,' and then I would go on to describe all the other features of the lamp, its burning qualities, its economy, its durability, and things of that kind. You see, I would have tried to side track[Pg 133] that objection to the finish of the lamp by talking about other things. If necessary you could tell her that she wouldn't have to clean the bronze finish as often as she would the brass. Now, if that isn't clear to you, Mr. Larsen, say so. Don't hesitate to speak up. You know I get more out of this than you boys do, if you ask questions."

As no one asked a question Mr. Field went on:

"I don't believe you should argue with a customer on something which is a matter of taste or fancy. If it was something about whether or not the lamp gave a good light, you could prove that it would, for that's not a question of taste, like the color or finish. In my stores we make it a rule to give way to the customer on little matters. That makes him feel good tempered, don't you know, and it's easy then for us to win our point on something important if its necessary to getting the order."

"I saw in one of the Sunday papers," remarked Jones, "an editorial which said to give way on little things, and you will gain the big ones."

"That's about the idea," replied Mr. Field. "I think that's very well put."

There was one other point that Mr. Field brought out, and one on which I was not certain whether he was right or not—the advisability of showing better class goods all the time. He said that if he had a store like mine he would want to offer solid silver goods during the Christmas trade for presents, and nice cases of cutlery.

"Don't you know," he said, "that people in this town buy those nice things? If you go into the better-class homes you will find beautiful silverware, and[Pg 134] cut-glass, and expensive cutlery, and all that kind of thing; but they don't buy them in the town because your business men seem afraid to stock up on really good stuff like that. When folks want that good stuff, they have to go to the big cities for it."

"Think of the money it runs into, though," I said.

"Yes, but think of the extra profit you make by it."

"Huh," interjected Larsen, "that sounds nice, 'extra profit.' Suppose you don't sell the goods! There you are flat on your back, with a lot of expensive silverware and things on your chest!"

We laughed at Larsen. When order was restored, Mr. Field said:

"With a little maneuvering it is possible to get such goods on consignment. We make a point, in all my stores, of offering the best goods we have to the customer. It's easier to come down than to go up, don't you know. I know a store in a small town, that never used to sell pocket-knives for more than fifty cents. They told me they didn't think it possible to sell anything more expensive, there, forgetting that there was a lot of money there. A salesman one day got them to put in a line of pocket-knives selling, retail, up to $2.00 each. They were afraid of them, in spite of the salesman's confidence that they could sell them, if they showed them so the salesman finally agreed to send them a lot on consignment. That was—let me see—a couple of years ago. When I was in the town a few days ago, I was talking with the owner of that store and he told me that now they very seldom sell anything less than 50 cents, and that their average price for pocket-knives is a dollar to a dollar and a quarter. He said they sell a lot of them up as high as $3.50 each,[Pg 135] and they sell more knives now than ever they did when they carried only cheap ones."

A buzz went around the store from my little force as this fact sunk home. Then Mr. Field sat down, and we broke into hearty applause.

Larsen got up, before we closed, and suggested a vote of thanks to Mr. Field for his most instructive talk, which suggestion was followed out; and the meeting then adjourned.

I felt that it was a mighty good thing to have an outsider come in and talk like that, and I decided to try to get some people to do it. Barlow was a mighty clever man, but I thought some of these little stunts I was pulling off were better than anything he could think of.

[Pg 136]

The next day I called on a number of people in the town that I knew and some that I didn't know, with the Cincinnati pencil sharpener.

I had delivered the eighteen, that Downs sold, when they arrived, and since then I had sold only one other. I had begun to wonder whether I had done right in buying that eighteen extra, for the Cincinnati man evidently had sold pretty well all the people in town who wanted pencil sharpeners—or so it seemed to me.

I plugged hard all day,—and sold one sharpener! I started off soon after nine o'clock and made my first call on Jerry Mills, who was a certified public accountant. We knew each other very well, so I got right down to business when I went into his office, and said:

"Jerry, I want to sell you a pencil sharpener. It's a dandy, and I know you'll like it," and then I brought out the Cincinnati.

"Glad to see you, old man," replied Jerry, "but I've already got a pencil sharpener. I bought it in Chicago, when I was there some time ago. Very similar to yours, isn't it? Well, how's business?" and we then drifted into general talk.

I spent about half an hour with him; but, of course, as he already had a pencil sharpener, I couldn't sell him another one.

My next call was on Dunn, who ran a clothing store.[Pg 137] I knew Dunn by sight, but I didn't think he knew me. I walked up the three flights and back to the rear of the building, and stopped in front of the railing of his office. I waited for two or three minutes, and then a boy came in and asked me what I wanted.

"I want to see Mr. Dunn," I said.

"What about?" asked the youngster, rather impudently.

"You tell him I'm—" and then I hesitated, and I said to myself that I wouldn't tell him I was Dawson Black. "Tell him that a salesman from Dawson Black wants to see him."

A minute or two later the boy returned. "Mr. Dunn says whatdeyuh want ter see him for?"

"Tell him I want to show him a new pencil sharpener that we have just got the agency for." I was a little bit exasperated.

The young demon grinned and said, "A'right," in a funny manner, marched into the private office and returned, it seemed without pausing, saying: "Nuttin' doin'."

I hesitated as to what to do, when he added:

"'Tain't no use. Boss got a grouch on this mornin'."

I remembered the rude reception I had given the Cincinnati pencil sharpener man when he called on me, and the way he had come back at me, and I said to myself that, if I could only see Dunn then I'd give him the same kind of medicine. While I stood there wondering what to do, my wish was gratified, for Dunn's door flew open, and out he came hurriedly. He was short, stout, red-faced man, almost bald, and has bristling red whiskers.

[Pg 138]"Oh, Mr. Dunn!" I called.

He turned around and snapped:

"What do you want?"

"I am from Dawson Black's—"

"Oh, I know all about that. We don't want any pencil sharpeners. Didn't the boy tell you?"

"Yes, but—"

"Then what the devil are you waiting for?"

I gulped and replied, "Nothing." He turned and walked away.

Let me confess it. I was afraid of him! I hate to admit it, but I was. I went down the stairs, feeling like a naughty boy who had been spanked—and yet he was altogether in the wrong! That little experience gave me a lot of sympathy for traveling salesmen, and also made me realize that those salesmen who called on me were bigger men than I was. And I realized that Dunn was a bigger man than I was, in spite of his rudeness. I could no more have answered his insolence, the way Downs answered mine, than I could have flown to the moon.

That reception knocked most of the heart out of me, and I wasn't very cheerful when I called on Blickens, the president of the bank. I picked him out because I figured that, at least, he would be civil to me.

When I told him what I had come for, he said:

"We have several of those around here, but—send one around." He put his hand in his pocket and passed me a dollar bill. I thanked him and retired, but I knew in my heart that he didn't want one, and that he had given me the order just to get rid of me, without offending me or hurting my feelings, because I was a depositor in the bank. I felt like a panhandler.

[Pg 139]And that was the result of my morning's work. It was getting along toward twelve o'clock, so I went home for lunch.

I made only two calls in the afternoon, both on people I knew. In each case they said they would be glad to buy one if it would help me, but really they—dash it all, I didn't want people to buy things of me just to help me! So I told them I didn't want them to have it, and I'm afraid I was very bad tempered.

When I got back to the store, Larsen asked:

"Well, Boss, how did you make out?"

"Oh," I replied, "I haven't been very busy. I only sold one. But I haven't really worked very much. I've been kind of doing some visiting." And I felt all the time that Larsen knew I was lying to him, for I certainly did work hard, and I felt more nervously tired that night than I had been for a long while.

I told Betty about my experiences. "Poor boy! Never mind, boy dear," she said, "forget it now. Take off your shoes and I'll bring your slippers for you." She brought me my slippers and my old meerschaum pipe, which she had filled, and placed it between my teeth, and lit a match for me, and then sat on the floor beside me. It was fine to have a wife like Betty to buck me up! She certainly gave me back my self-respect.

Never again would I be rude to the fellow who called on me at my store. I wish every store owner would try the work I did that day. I think there'd be more kindliness and courtesy in the relationship between buyer and salesman. Barlow was a kind-hearted man, but even he wasn't always courteous when he was busy or didn't want to talk to a salesman.

[Pg 140]As I was leaving the house the next morning Betty asked me:

"Boy dear, did you read this little booklet?" It was the booklet which Downs had left me. I had forgotten all about it. Going down to the store, I glanced at it, and realized then, that my methods had all been wrong, and that probably I had been to blame for my failure the day before.

For instance, it said: "The name of the firm and of yourself are of secondary importance in selling the Cincinnati pencil sharpener. It is what it will do that counts. When calling on a prospect, don't say, 'Can I sell you a pencil sharpener?' but ask him to lend you a pencil and tell him you will show him how he can keep it pointed easily and make it last longer." And then it went on to explain how to demonstrate the device. "In brief," it said, "show the prospect how the sharpener works—for preference get him to sharpen a pencil for himself; and then, when he once sees how easily it operates, he is more than half sold. Then talk about the price."

And I had done just the opposite! I first of all had told where I was from, then that I wanted to sell them a pencil sharpener, and I hadn't demonstrated it at all! I realized when I read the book that the trouble was that they had made up their minds not to buy before I had a chance of telling them what it was. I decided to try again, following the suggestions in the book and see if it worked any better.

One good point I learned from the book, which I put on the schedule for the next Monday's meeting, was that a salesman should always get the customer to see for himself how a thing works—that, when you get[Pg 141] him to handle it, it helps to make the sale. Thinking of this reminded me of the time when Betty's kid sister had visited us. I had asked her if she would like to have a doll, and she had said yes, but she hadn't seemed particularly keen over it. Then I had pointed one out to her when we were passing Riley's store—he ran a stationery store, and sold dolls, school supplies, and toys as well—and she had thought it was a nice doll, but I had had no difficulty in getting her to come to the office with me first. But later on, when I took her into Riley's and she had got a big doll in her arms, I couldn't take it away from her to get it wrapped up! No, sir-ree, she had just hung tight to her doll, and nothing could induce her to part with it, and she had carried it away without having it wrapped.

Now, that was interesting, wasn't it? When I had just spoken to her about the doll, her interest was only mild. When she had seen it her interest was a little stronger. But when she actually had got it into her hands her desire was uncontrollable. I could see how the same idea would work out in selling goods to customers. If we simply told them about the goods, there would be only a passive interest. If we pointed the article out to them in the case, it might be stronger, but still not strong enough to make a sale. But if we put the article right into the customer's hands and told him to see for himself how it worked I could readily see how it was going to make the desire to buy much greater than anything else could.

I remembered, too, how Weissman, one of our neighbors, had been talking for a long, long time about buying an automobile, but had never reached the point of actually paying out the money for it. Well, a friend[Pg 142] took him out in a car one day and showed him how to drive it, and Weissman came back so keen about having a car that he ordered one the same day, with instructions to have it shipped rush!

We'll adopt that idea as a rule at our next Monday night's meeting.

A day or two later, I again tried my hand at selling pencil sharpeners—and I sold five! The fellow that wrote that little book on how to sell Cincinnati pencil sharpeners had known what he was talking about, all right.

The first man I struck was Blenkhorn, who ran the meat market. He was considered the meanest man in town. I had make up my mind to start with a good, tough customer, because I wanted to give the new plan a thorough test, and I felt that if I could sell to a tough one I could sell to anybody. Well, the toughest customer I could think of was Blenkhorn, so I started on him. You see, I had my courage back.

Well, I went into his store. Blenkhorn nodded to me. "Hello, Black," he said.

"Hello, Mr. Blenkhorn," I returned. "How many pencils do you use in a year here?"

"Pencils? I don't know, I'm sure, but I think my people eat 'em. I'm everlastingly buying 'em."

"Suppose I could tell you a way to make them last about twice as long."

"H'm! If you can tell me how to make these people more careful with pencils, I'll be mighty glad to know it."

"Well, I'll show you," and here I put my sharpener on the counter. "You know," I said, "when a man[Pg 143] sharpens a pencil what a lot of wood and lead he cuts away?"

"Cuts away? Why, here they hack 'em all to pieces! But what's that contraption?"

"I'll show you. Just lend me a pencil." He passed over a pencil that looked as if the wood at the end had been bitten off, instead of cut off.

Blenkhorn was watching my actions rather curiously. I put the pencil in the sharpener, gave it two or three turns, and out it came with the point nicely rounded and sharpened.

"You notice," I said, "that it didn't cut away any of the lead at all, only the wood."

"H'm," he returned, and then he walked away and came back with a half a dozen more pencils. "Let's see it sharpen some more."

"Go ahead, try it yourself, Mr. Blenkhorn."

I held the outfit firmly and he sharpened one after the other.

"H'm," he said again. "How much is that thing?"

"Only a dollar."

"You can buy a lot of pencils for a dollar," he mused.

"That's true," I replied, "but you'll save a lot of dollars by the use of this." I had got that from the chapter in the booklet headed: "Answers to objections."

"Send me one of those, Black," said Blenkhorn. "I'll try it."

"Thank you, Mr. Blenkhorn," I said. "By the way, do you want any butcher's supplies now. I have some mighty good knives."

[Pg 144]"No, I have all of those I want. Oh, the missis did tell me to go down to Stigler's to buy a good short-handled ax for splitting kindling."

"I'll save you the trouble and send it down for you, right away."

"How much are they worth?"

"Dollar and a half."

"The last one I got cost me only a dollar."

"How long did it last?"

"Not long. The blamed head kept coming off."

"Well, I'll sell you one for $1.50, and guarantee the head won't come off, and if it does I'll replace it for you free of charge."

Without further words, he went to the cash register, took out $2.50 and handed it to me, saying with a grin:

"You're right after business, aren't you, Black? Good luck to you."

Well, I found that this method worked well, and I sold five sharpeners during the day—six in fact, for when I got back to the store I found that they had sold two more, and one of them had been to Blakely, the lawyer, on whom I had called earlier in the day, and who had said he might get one later on. Evidently he had changed his mind, and dropped into the store when he was passing by. In addition to the sale of the sharpeners, I had sold $11.00 worth of other things. That was going some, wasn't it?

And to think, if it hadn't been for that little book, I would never have started the plan!

Well, we all seemed to have the pencil sharpener craze, and I was glad of it, and determined to push pencil sharpeners all I could, if only as a kind of thank-[Pg 145]you for their putting me onto a new channel of getting business.

I met Barlow as I was coming home. I told him what I had done, and how I had got the order for the ax which Stigler would have had. He laughed heartily at that, and said he was very glad to hear it.

"I think you're going to make a real big man yet, Dawson," he said. "Is Stigler still hurting you with his mark-down prices?"

"Yes, he is," I confessed. "But I think I've got a plan that's going to put it all over him."

"What's that?"

"I'm going to start using trading stamps."

"What-at!" he said, in a surprised tone.

"Yes," I continued. "The man was to have come last Thursday; but he had to leave town Wednesday night, and he wired me that he was coming up to-morrow, and I'm going to take them up."

Barlow stopped short in the street, swung me around until I was facing him, and said in a stern tone:

"Young man, do you know what a fool thing you are trying to do?"

"Fool thing nothing!" I returned. "And I don't see how you are able to judge that." I rather felt that he was butting in where he had no concern.

"You're right," he said, "it's no concern of mine at all. But for heaven's sake, lad, think twice before you tangle yourself up with anything like that."

[Pg 146]

When I told Fellows about my trading stamp idea, he suggested that I think over the question once more, before taking them up, and he asked if he could be present at the interview when the Garter trading stamp man came around.

It was hard to tell what to do. I thought trading stamps were a good thing; but Fellows of the Flaxon Advertising Agency apparently didn't like them, and Barlow didn't either. When I talked it over with Betty, first she said, "Don't touch them at all," then she said, "I don't know, try them!" Finally she said she didn't know what to think of them. The decision was, after all, up to me and no one seemed to know much about them.

Well, I agreed to think it over again, and when Bulder, the Garter trading stamp man, came, I put him off until the next day. Fellows was going to be there when he came, and I thought I'll let those two have it out and put my money on the winner.

Stigler was up to a new dodge.

Until the first of the month there had been a small men's furnishing store next door to me. Well, Dorman, who ran the store, had ended by running it to the wall. Poor fellow, he'd been in that location for over forty years, and at the time was a man of nearly[Pg 147] seventy. He never had done much business, at least not since my knowledge of him, and, towards the last, the place had been getting seedier and seedier each month, and finally he had had to give it up. He told the Mater—he knew her quite well—that he never had made over $20.00 a week in the store, and, after paying up all his debts, he had less than half the money he had originally put into the business.

"I'd have been much better off clerking for some one else," he had told the Mater, "for I would have saved a little money. As it is, here I am, three score and ten, and, if I live two years more, I'll have to go to the poorhouse, I suppose."

Old Dorman had made me think pretty seriously when he got out. I was wondering how many more small storekeepers were in Dorman's position; how many of them had bungled along from year to year, making a bare existence; I hoped I could do better than that! It had made me feel the need of not only keeping up-to-date, but up-to-to-morrow in business ideas. I remembered what Barker, the big hardware man in Boston, had said to me when I asked him why there were so many little stores, after he had mentioned that there were a lot of little stores which were not represented in the association.

"The reason," he returned, with a sad shake of his head, "is that the men who run them are little. They wear blinkers all their lives. Their outlook is extremely narrow. They never grasp what is going on around them. They don't keep up to date in their ideas and methods of doing business. They never grow, but remain little all their lives."

But I started in to tell what it was that Stigler did.[Pg 148] That afternoon, to my surprise, I saw him in Dorman's empty store with a carpenter, measuring the floor space. When he came out I was on the doorstep bidding good-by to Betty, who had dropped into the store to remind me that I was to take home some cheap kitchen knives.

"Hello, Black," called Stigler, as he came out of the store. At the same time his lips gave that contemptuous curl which always got under my epidermis.

"Hello, yourself, Stigler," I replied.

"Well," he said, stopping for a minute in front of me, "you and me's going to be pretty close neighbors, Black, ain't we?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I've just rented old Dorman's store. You know, I think there's room in this town for a good five-and-ten-cent store, specializing on kitchen goods. This looked like a good location to me, so I'm just going to try it out. Open up the first of the month."

"Fine," I said. "Good luck to you!" putting as much heartiness into my tone as I could. And then I went into the store before my rage, and let me say, anxiety, should show themselves to Stigler.

"Gee whitakins!" I thought. "A five-and-ten-cent store, next door to me, specializing in kitchen goods, and run by Stigler!"

I knew, without his saying a word about it, that he was opening that store with the money he had just inherited from a brother out West, and that he was doing it just to try "to run me off my feet," as he had expressed it before.

I think I did the best thing I could possibly have done under the circumstances, for I went right over[Pg 149] to Barlow's. Barlow had told me repeatedly that, any time I needed help, I should go right to him. I certainly felt that I needed the advice of an old war-horse like he was. Somehow the fact that he was a bit old-fashioned and staid in his ways made him appear a rock of comfort to me.

I told him the whole story, and he certainly looked grave.

"What can I do?" I asked anxiously. "I haven't the money to fight him. He is cutting into my profits very much as it is. Would you advise me to make a big display of five-and-ten-cent goods before he has a chance to open the store?"

"When is he going to get started?"

"Well, he said he was going to open by the first of the month."

I think for five minutes Barlow said nothing, but just see-sawed backward and forward on his swivel chair.

"What ratio would cheap kitchen goods bear to your total sales?" he finally asked.

"I don't know what you mean."

"I mean, suppose you sell a hundred dollars' worth of goods, how many dollars' worth of that would be in five- ten- and fifteen-cent articles?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Surely you have some idea as to whether the cheap goods are the ones that sell best in your store?"

"Well, I'm sure I don't know."

Some of those old-timers' were pretty shrewd fellows after all. I had never thought of analyzing my sales in that way.

"Tell you what to do," he said. "Find out what[Pg 150] proportion you are buying of five- ten- and fifteen-cent kitchen goods, and how much of the better-class goods."

"What then?" I inquired, still in the dark.

"If your big sales are on the cheaper goods, I would advise you to make a window display of half cheap and half good articles. Put a sign in the window to the effect that you have cheap articles to sell, and good ones to use. If you find your sales are mostly on the better-class goods, I would advise you to start an educational advertising campaign, if you can afford it."

"What is an educational advertising campaign?"

"It means advertising the better-class goods and giving reasons and facts why they are better than the cheaper ones. Advertise that you have the low-priced articles, but, if they want the cheapest, the best is the cheapest in the end. For instance, here is a ten-cent Dover egg-beater. I have one here, a glass affair, which sells at a dollar. Actually, I am selling almost as many of the dollar egg-beaters as I do of the ten-cent ones."

"Why?"

"Because I show them that the ten-cent egg-beaters cannot last very long—they can't expect a ten-cent article to do that—but this glass one will last indefinitely; it is more sanitary; the tinning on it is very heavy and it won't rust; it is cleaner, more serviceable, easier to work," and then he gave me half a dozen more facts about that dollar egg-beater which I would never have thought of. "If you were buying an egg-beater," he continued with a smile, "which would you buy now?"

"Buy the best one unquestionably, because I can see,[Pg 151] after what you have told me, that the other isn't to be compared with it!"

"Exactly. And if you tell those facts to your trade, they will buy the better article in just the same way."

"Then, if I am selling more of the better-class goods than the cheaper ones, you would advise me to give Stigler the cheap business—give up the fight for it?"

"No," he returned with a smile. "Don't give up the fight, but fight him in a way that will hurt him most. That is, to educate the people away from the cheap goods."

"I see! Kind o' put him out of business by killing the demand for his goods!"

"That's the idea, and it sounds easy if you say it quickly. Candidly," he said, "I don't think it will hurt your business much. I wouldn't, personally, mind another hardware store opening next to me, particularly if they played the game according to Hoyle."

"But Stigler won't do it!" I cried.

Betty agreed with Barlow that the thing to do was to try to develop the sale for the better-class articles. "For," said she, "if a woman buys a ten-cent egg-beater, you make three cents profit on it. If she buys a dollar egg-beater, you make over thirty cents profit on it, and the sale of one of those dollar articles is about equal to a dozen of the cheap ones."

"By Jove, you're right!" I exclaimed. "Perhaps Stigler's latest move to 'run me off my feet' may be the petard which will hoist him off his own; at any rate, as regards his five-and-ten-cent venture."

Naturally, I could think of nothing but Stigler and five-and-ten-cent competition, and finally I had an idea.[Pg 152] This idea was awfully simple—unless it proved to be simply awful.

There were in Farmdale about a dozen stores to rent. I had no thought of renting them; but I was going to see the landlords of those places and see what they would charge me to rent the windows for a week! and then I'd ask Barlow to let me hire his men for an evening to trim each of those windows with the better-class kitchen goods, and then I'd put a big sign in each window something like this: "If you want kitchen goods that wear, you'll find them at Dawson Black's." I'd have smart little talking signs worked up and put on the goods, saying why they were better than cheap articles, and asking customers to come to my store at 32 Hill Street, and we would demonstrate why it paid to get the best. "It pays to get the best." That was to be the slogan, and I would print it on the bottom of all price tickets and talking signs!

I began to feel rather pleased that Stigler was starting that five-and-ten-cent store next to me! It seemed to have shaken me into action. I believed that, with a good window display in those empty stores for a week, I could work up a lot of business and get a lot of valuable publicity into the bargain.

When I mentioned the idea to Betty, she didn't say anything for a few seconds, and then she said very demurely:

"Dawson, you can have two more buckwheat cakes this morning."

[Pg 153]

Bulder, the Garter trading stamp man, called according to arrangement.

"Good morning, Mr. Black," he said heartily, as he entered the store. "Well, I don't think we'll have much difficulty in getting this little matter fixed up to-day. It is going to mean a big thing for you, and you can be quite sure that the Garter Trading Stamp Company is going to be at the back of you to make this thing a big success."

He spoke quite confidently, as if he were sure I was going to take them up. And indeed I had been all along practically decided to adopt them.

"That's fine," I said in response to Bulder's greeting. "I want you, however, to meet Mr. Fellows, who is waiting in my office." I saw a faint change take place in Bulder's manner. He seemed at once to become a little suspicious and on his guard.

"Fellows? Fellows?" he replied. "Oh, one of your men?"

"Well, yes and no," I returned with a laugh. "He is connected with the Flaxon Advertising Agency and he does all my advertising, and I like to get the benefits of his ideas."

"Mr. Black," said Bulder, "I am doing this business with you, and while I am sure that Mr. Fellows is a[Pg 154] mighty fine man, you could hardly expect me to want to talk this matter over with him—at any rate, with the idea of helping you to decide what to do; for, you see, he is an advertising man and naturally wants to spend all your appropriation himself."

"Fellows isn't that kind," I replied, somewhat curtly.

Bulder saw that he had been tactless, so he put his hand on my shoulder, and said, soothingly:

"That's all right, Mr. Black, I was only joking. Glad to talk the matter over with any friend of yours."

I don't know why it was, but I seemed from that moment to feel a distrust of him. I had rather liked him before. But now he seemed to me too suave, too—oh, too fat and easy about it.

Well, we went into my little office and I introduced him to Fellows.

"Our mutual friend, Mr. Black," said Bulder with a smile, "wants me to talk over with you both the splendid possibilities of his store through the Garter Trading Stamps. Good idea. It shows he is cautious and has good judgment."

"Mr. Black is quite a busy man, you know, Mr. Bulder," Fellows replied, "and perhaps don't have time enough always to think over every angle of a proposition; so he very wisely believes in talking things over and getting an outside viewpoint. Mr. Black can analyze these problems himself just as well as you or I can; but he believes in conserving his time and energies as much as he can."

All this preliminary by-play interested and amused me. But then the real battle began. Imagine those two—that big, burly, good-natured, somewhat bull[Pg 155]dozing Bulder, and the shrewd, courteous New Englander, Fellows; Bulder with his heavy, sledge-hammer methods,—the bludgeon method, you might call it,—and Fellows with his keen, sharp, rapier methods.

Bulder realized at once that Fellows was strongly against the stamps, and that it was going to be a battle of wits and logic. I had better confess that my sporting blood was roused, and I had decided that the fellow who won the argument would have me on his side.

"What do you know about the company?" I asked Fellows, so as to get things started.

"Not a thing," he said, "but I am sure that that is a matter of minor importance; for Mr. Bulder is too big a business man to connect himself with an organization that is not thoroughly sound."

Very neatly put!—and yet I could see that, even if the trading stamp proposition won, Bulder would still have to prove that his company was financially and morally sound.

How I wish I could write down in full detail all that was said by both of them, but I can't remember it all. Bulder started in with a few heavy blows by stating that the Garter trading stamps gave the merchant who handled them a decided advantage over his competitors; for their splendid premium catalog, their numerous supply stations, the fact that they would let me have a set of representative premiums for window display, the excellent line of advertising matter which he said was part of the service which I bought from them at the time I bought their stamps. . . . "You quite understand, Mr. Black," he said laboriously, "that you are not buying just trading stamps from us,[Pg 156] or trading tokens as we prefer to call them, but you are buying a merchandising service—you are buying all the selling ideas and helps which we can give you, besides the splendid backing which the name of Garter stamps gives you.

"And," he continued to Fellows, for he knew that Fellows was the opposition and not I, "when Mr. Black takes up our agency, no other hardware man in town will be able to get it. . . . In fact," he said, with a sudden burst of generosity, "so that there will be absolutely no question of full protection and no competition, we will not even supply a glass and china store, a five-and-ten-cent store, a cutlery store, or a novelty store—in fact, any other store which might compete with him in any way.

"Thus, you see, I am offering you something, Mr. Black," he said with an ingratiating smile, "which is a wonderful advantage to you. It will really put your store in a class by itself."

"Fine!" broke in Fellows, before I could say anything. "A thought has just occurred to me, however. While you promise that no other hardware man shall have the Garter stamps, can you promise that no other trading stamp concern will offer stamps to any other hardware man in Farmdale?"

Bidder replied with a deprecating smile: "What other concerns are there of our importance and size?"

Fellows came back with the names of two concerns which were better known to me than the Garter trading stamp.

"Why, yes," drawled Bulder, "of course, they might offer stamps to some other hardware man. But, my dear sir, think a minute—what are the value of[Pg 157] their stamps compared to ours? Why, my good friend, you can't compare them! Every woman in town knows that Garter stamps have a higher premium value than any others."

"Exactly," replied Fellows. "By the way, what other stores have you in this town at present?"

Bulder slowly turned until he was facing Fellows. Leaning his elbow on the desk, he asked:

"Didn't I tell you that I was giving Mr. Black the opportunity to reap the big benefit of being the first with our stamps here?"

"That's funny!" I broke in impetuously, but a look from Fellows stopped me. I had been going to say that I didn't see how his last two remarks gibed; for in one breath he had said that every woman in town knew that Garter trading stamps were better, and in the next he had said that I was to reap the first big benefit of having the stamps.

Fellows had leaned forward and was saying to Bulder:

"Mr. Bulder, do you really believe it is good business to offer something for nothing?"

"Surely," cried Bulder, "you are not going to bring up that worn-out argument? Everybody knows that it is not something for nothing. . . . Look here, my good friend," said he, turning to me, "if you buy some goods and pay cash you expect a discount for paying cash, don't you?"

"Yes," I replied hesitatingly.

"Surely you do! And if you didn't get the discount for cash, you would take all the credit you could, wouldn't you? . . . Very well," he continued, without waiting for a reply, "that's what our stamps will[Pg 158] do. They are not something for nothing. They are merely a discount for cash. People that don't pay cash don't get the stamps. . . ."

Then he went on to tell me about some stores which had changed from a credit basis to cash through the use of Garter stamps. In my imagination I saw Fellows being driven into a corner by Bulder's bludgeon, his rapier beaten down and his defenses gone.

Fellows kept trying to work a word in edgewise, but Bulder, by the continued force of his words, beat down all Fellows' attempts to break in. Finally Bulder leaned back and said:

"Surely you are not going to stick to your foolish idea that trading stamps are something for nothing. All sensible people know that no one can give something for nothing and live, and I trust that the trading stamp concerns are sensible people. It is merely a cash discount."

"Why couldn't I give a cash discount, instead?" I asked—and as soon as I said it I was sorry I had, because I noticed a look of annoyance in Fellows' face.

"That is a very sensible question," said Bulder. "Because if you did give the cash discount yourself it would be so trifling that the people would not realize it was of any advantage to them. If somebody comes in and spends a dollar with you, and you give them two cents discount, what is it to them? It is nothing at all! But if you give them trading stamps, those have a real value in their eyes."

"Then why couldn't I give trading stamps of my own—just have them printed and give them out?"

"Because every trading stamp concern in the country could beat you on the value of your premiums.[Pg 159] Think of the tremendous buying power that we have. It would be absolutely impossible for you to give trading stamps of your own and have any chance with competition. Now, I don't think for a moment that you are not as keen a business man as the next fellow, but the big concerns realize that it is specialization that means success, and we have simply specialized in this one branch of marketing to help you fellows do something which you could do yourselves, but not nearly so effectively or cheaply as we can. Do you think the big department stores up and down the country would have trading stamps from us if they could handle them as cheaply themselves? No, of course not!"

"Well," here broke in Fellows quietly, "I may be mistaken, but I believe that trading stamps are an outgrowth of inefficiency and laziness on the part of retail merchants. Of course, the people who sell trading stamps get value for their money, but the retailer and the consumer both pay for it. The retailer pays for it by losing, let us say, three per cent. on each turn-over of his stock investment. Suppose Mr. Black here turns his stock over five times a year, he is really paying fifteen per cent. of his investment to you people for something which you must admit is not exclusively his. Do you think it is possible for a retail merchant to continue that and live? If it is, he might spend that fifteen per cent. in increasing the quality of his store service rather than to pay it to an outside organization to supply a substitute for it. One thing is sure—no merchant can pay fifteen per cent. on his investment and stand that expenditure himself. If he handles the stamps, why, up go his prices, wherever he can manage it, to make the consumer pay for them.

[Pg 160]"I am sure you will agree with me that in the end it is the consumer who pays the freight. This whole proposition looks to me like selling a man a sack of flour, and then making him pay for the sack of flour and a half dozen collars or a pair of suspenders besides. He doesn't want those collars or suspenders, mind you, but they are included with the purchase price, and, whether he takes them or not, he has to pay for them."

Bulder leaned back with a patronizing air. "My young friend," he said to Fellows, "you talk very interestingly, but the things you say are mere generalities. You have not given a single concrete fact showing where the trading stamps would hurt our friend here, while I have already given Mr. Black a number of cases, which he can easily verify for himself, of merchants who have improved their business by trading stamps.

"My proposition to Mr. Black is that he tries the stamps for a year, and if he does not find"—and here he tapped the table impressively with his fingers—"if he does not find that they have actually increased his business, why then we will call the deal off. We will risk—gladly risk—all the heavy expenditures of working with Mr. Black. We will risk the lost prestige to ourselves of having a dealer give up our splendid offer; and I do this, Mr. Fellows, because I know from past experience—not from mere theories—that Garter stamps will mean an increased profit to Mr. Black."

"Would you supply any other line of business in this town, Mr. Bulder?" asked Fellows quietly.

"Certainly, my young friend. Because by doing so[Pg 161] it would help Mr. Black. Don't you see that, if one hardware man, and one druggist, and one dry goods store, and so on, had our stamps, all those merchants would be in a class by themselves? It would make them the leading merchants in the town, for people would trade with them so that they could collect the Garter stamps."

"I see," returned Fellows quietly. "And the man who gets stamps here from Mr. Black would be able to buy, let us say, a hat or some china ornaments through you people, which would, incidentally, deprive the local men's furnishing store or china store of the sale of those articles. And, of course, that same man might get trading stamps from other stores, and with those stamps he could buy a pocketknife through you people, and thus take the sale of that pocketknife away from Mr. Black."

Bulder waved the question aside as though not worth bothering with. "My dear man," he asserted, "the people who get things for those trading stamps get things they would not buy otherwise. That is surely a very trivial contention."

Fellows looked at me and said:

"Black, I have no reason to take any more of yours or Mr. Bulder's valuable time, as I see nothing else to say except that I strongly advise against the adoption of this or any other trading stamp or profit-sharing scheme which you do not control yourself. Of course, a few merchants in a town can get together and run this trading stamp system, whereby your stamps are accepted for cash in other stores and other stores' stamps are accepted for cash in your own, and by that system there might possibly be some benefit in the[Pg 162] trading stamps. But I believe that any merchant who uses trading stamps—and I do not refer to your excellent company, Mr. Bulder—is merely building up business for some outside organization. He is merely diverting some of his own profits into the pockets of the trading stamp concerns, which do not really build up any business at all; because, if the stamps prove successful for one merchant, it will not be long before other merchants take them up and then every one is giving profits to the trading stamp concerns without any of them getting any real benefit from it. I believe the use of trading stamps is more or less an admission of inability to think up plans of getting business for oneself."

Bulder smiled. He was once again the acme of courtesy.

"That argument of yours sounds excellent, Mr. Fellows," he said suavely. "Excellent! But why not apply it to your business? Why not say that if one merchant advertises, all merchants will advertise and thus the benefits of advertising are nullified?"

Fellows was once again beaten down, I thought. He was plainly stumped for a few seconds. Then he replied:

"There is something in what you say, Mr. Bulder. But with trading stamp competition every one is offering merely trading stamps. There is no particular difference between them, and one offers no material advantage over another. But advertising is different. You yourself admit that, and appreciate the benefits of advertising, for in your own printed matter"—and here he held some of it up—"you advise the merchant to advertise the trading stamp proposition, 'thus'"[Pg 163]—he quoted from a folder—"'tying up the prestige of the Garter trading stamps with the local merchant's own store.'

"Now, while in trading stamps there is no apparent difference, with advertising one can express one's personality and character, which trading stamps never do. There are so many ways in which one may advertise: newspapers, billboards, booklets, form letters, street car signs; and you can make your advertising such that it will be better than your competitors'. But trading stamps are trading stamps and nothing more. The story of advertising is as varied as language itself. With advertising you can vary the appeal so that it always has a freshness which trading stamps must soon lose."

Bulder was plainly perturbed.

"I claim," he said heavily, "just the same distinction, that same personality—why, the very dress of our trading stamps is an advertisement, just as is the design on those Kleen-Kut tools I see displayed there. They are well-known, they are recognized by the trademark, and that is their individuality. Our trading stamp has the same individuality—it has our peculiar design and trademark."

"I am unconvinced," said Fellows, shaking his head with finality. "Your arguments sound excellent, but the fact remains that once a dealer takes on trading stamps it is difficult for him to get rid of them. People come in and ask for the stamps—"

"Good night!" I thought. Bulder was quick to respond.

"Of course they come and ask for the stamps. And if we offer these stamps to other dealers, and then[Pg 164] people come to Mr. Black and ask him for them, and find he doesn't have them, won't that hurt Mr. Black? Won't they say that Mr. Black isn't as progressive as other people? If the people demand trading stamps, it is up to Mr. Black to give them, for, if he is not progressive enough to do so, he will drive them to some other store."

"I take strong exception to your words," said Fellows evenly. "I don't appreciate your slur on the 'progressiveness' of my—of Mr. Black."

"I beg Mr. Black's pardon. I spoke hastily. But you must admit, Mr. Black, that the unreasonableness of your friend is exasperating."

Fellows ignored the last remark. Apparently to no one, he mused:

"I remember in the little town of Wakeford some of the merchants there got this trading stamp 'bug.' First one got it, then another, and then they were all giving trading stamps—that is, all those who did any real business. And then one of them thought he would steal a march on the others, and began giving double trading stamps on Saturday. In two weeks they were all giving double trading stamps on Saturday. It has got so now that they are giving double stamps every Friday and triple stamps on Saturday! I suppose before long they'll be all giving double stamps every day of the week. Pretty tough on those merchants, isn't it?"

Bulder looked at Fellows with some amazement in his face, for Fellows' remarks were not apparently addressed to either of us; he was gazing through the window of the door leading into the store.

"Pretty tough on those merchants," Fellows contin[Pg 165]ued, "because, when they give double trading stamps, they increase their percentage of cost on their capital from 15 to 30 per cent. assuming they have a 5 times turnover. Of course it's all right for the trading stamp concerns, because the more stamps that are sold, the more profit they make.

"By the way, Mr. Bulder, do you sell stamps in Wakeford?"

"Why, yes, we do sell some," was the reluctant response.

I saw the point at once, and instantly I made up my mind that I would not take the chance of being drawn into a war of giving trading stamps away in competition with other stores, and I quietly told Bulder that we were merely wasting time now, that I had definitely decided not to touch the proposition at all.

Bulder shrugged his shoulders. "I am sorry that you let this opportunity go by. But please don't come to us in a few months' time and ask to do business with us, for we shall unquestionably close with some other hardware store before I leave town to-day."

He was once more the suave and polished man of the world. He shook hands pleasantly with us, cracked a joke or two, and left the store, apparently in the best of humor.

Hardly had he gone out when Fellows went to the telephone and called up Mr. Barlow. I don't know what Barlow said, but I heard Fellows say:

"This is Fellows of the Flaxon Advertising Agency. I am at Dawson Black's. We have just had the Garter Trading Stamp man here. You knew that Black was thinking of taking up the trading stamp proposition. Well, he has turned it down cold. I thought[Pg 166] you might like to know, in case they came to you with a different story."

There was a meeting of the Merchants' Association that evening—I didn't tell you that I had joined sometime before. As I entered the meeting room, Barlow came to me and told me that Bulder had been to see him, and had told him that I was interested in his proposition but he felt that Barlow would be the better man for them to work with.

Barlow brought the matter of trading stamps up for discussion at the meeting, and it was decided that no member of the association should handle them.

"What would we do if some merchants in the town, who are not members of the association, should take them on?" I asked.

I saw a twinkle in Barlow's eye, for he knew I was thinking of Stigler, who was not a member of the organization.

"I should think," said Wimple, who was the president, "that we had better not try to cross that bridge until we come to it. The leading merchants belong to the association, and I question very much whether the fact that some small store might handle the stamps would have any effect upon us, one way or the other."

I hoped and believed that we had killed trading stamps so far as our town was concerned, but I determined that, if ever the question was to come up again, through some of the others taking up stamps, I would suggest that idea of Fellows', that we form a trading stamp organization of our own, which the association could run. In other words, the Merchants' Association would be the trading stamp concern, and so we would have any benefits coming from it ourselves.

[Pg 167]

As soon as possible, I visited the landlords of all the empty stores in town, and contracted to rent the windows in seven of them for two weeks beginning the first of October.

Two of the stores I couldn't get because they had been rented for the first of October; one I didn't go to at all because I remembered, fortunately, in time, that the landlord was a friend of Stigler's. If I had told him what I wanted, the probabilities were that Stigler would have got wind of it and he would somehow have got ahead of me.

The total expense was less than twenty dollars. Two stores I got for nothing, and I found out that Barlow owned them. The old brick had told his agent to let me have them for two weeks without any cost. Traglio, the druggist, let me have the vacant store next door to him, which he owned, for $2.00 a week, on the understanding that I would not display any toilet articles, and that I would put a card in the window, at my own expense, reading: "For toilet articles of all kinds go to Traglio's." I didn't think that would hurt me any, so I promised to do it. It cost me $12.00 for the old Bon Marche store, but that was right opposite the post office, and I thought it well worth the money, because everybody in town would see the displays[Pg 168] there. Besides, they were big windows. It had been a prosperous store, but Waldron, who ran it, had lost his money in a big Providence bank failure.

When I had got it all done the question came to me, What am I going to do for stock? It would be difficult to put a lot of stock in those windows to make a real display and still have left in the store any of the lines to sell. I worried over this for some time, and then I wrote to Hersom, the salesman for Bates & Hotchkin of Boston, the jobbers from whom I bought the bulk of my general supplies, and told him about my plan, and asked him if he could help me out. They were pretty decent people, and while I had to pay a fraction more for the majority of the goods than if I had bought from the manufacturer it was well worth it to me, for they looked after me well. As Hersom had told me, the last time he had called, "We certainly will do all we can for you, because you give us the bulk of your business." . . .

Coincidences do happen even in a little town. The electric light company had been making a big campaign in the town, advocating the use of electricity for lighting, cooking, ironing, etc. The advertising certainly had made the gas company sit up and take notice, for they had offered to wire houses for a ridiculously small amount, with easy terms of payment, and in a large percentage of the houses they had begun to use electricity instead of gas. For some time I had been thinking of taking advantage of this fact, and putting in a stock of electric toasters and grills, perhaps an electric fan or so, and a few electrical devices like that.

Well, I happened to meet Mrs. Twombley in the street. Mrs. Twombley was a close friend of the Ma[Pg 169]ter's. She was a widow, like Mater, and they had been schoolgirls together, and Mrs. Twombley had been one of the episodes of my father's period of calf love. Mrs. Twombley was a big, plump, jolly-looking woman, well to do, and she was quite fond of me. The last time she had been at the house she had said to the Mater, as she rumpled my hair—she did that every time she came because she knew I didn't like it—"It was just nip and tuck as to whether I would have been Dawson's mother, wasn't it?"

She was passing on the other side of the street, and, seeing me, she frantically waved her umbrella at me—she always carried an umbrella, whatever the weather might be. I went across to her, and she told me she wanted a dozen kitchen knives.

"I don't know what Lucy does with them," she said. "I think she must be engaged to a sword swallower and he is practicing with my knives."

Then she added: "By the way, Dawson, I have never asked you to do anything for me, have I?"

"No," I replied, wondering what she meant.

"Well, young man, I am going to make a suggestion to you that may cost you a few dollars. Our fair for Foreign Missions takes place, as you know, next month, and you are going to help us out."

"In what way?"

"Bless the boy, I don't know! Look around your store and see if there isn't something you don't want; or else send some things up and give us a commission for selling them. See what you can do about it." And she bustled off without waiting for an answer.

And now for the coincidence. When I got back to the store there was an unusually smart-looking chap[Pg 170] waiting to see me. It seemed he represented the Atlantic Electric Appliance Corporation, and they wanted me to take the agency for their full line of electric appliances.

"Your line is a good thing, I'm sure," I said to him—Wilkshire was his name—"but, candidly, I couldn't afford to put in a full supply of those things, although I was thinking of starting with a few toasters and one or two things of that kind."

"I can understand, Mr. Black," was his response, "that you couldn't very well carry the whole line that we have, unless we worked with you on it. We believe there's a big field in Farmdale for electric appliances—better than usual on account of what the electric light company's doing to boost things.

"Our proposition is this: If you will make a special display of electrical appliances for a week we'll supply you with a full line of our goods, we'll send a demonstrator to show how they are worked, and we will go fifty-fifty on any advertising you care to do during that time.

"When the demonstration is over, go ahead and stock up what you think is necessary, and we'll undertake to supply you with additional stock on twenty-four hours' time. You are not such a great way from Hartford"—that was their headquarters—"and, if you order one day, you can have the goods right here within forty-eight hours at the latest."

Just then the telephone bell rang. Larsen answered it, and I heard him say:

"Yes, Mrs. Twombley, he's back. I'll tell him."

I went to the 'phone, and she wanted me to be sure not to forget about helping them out at the fair.[Pg 171] "Remember," she reminded me, "it starts Tuesday, the twelfth of October, and ends the Saturday following."

"Mrs. Twombley," I replied, "an idea has come to me. How would you like me to supply you with an electrical exhibition?"

"Bless the boy! What do you mean?"

"How would you like me to make a display up there of all kinds of electrical appliances, with some pretty girls to show everybody how they work and what they will do?"

"That would be splendid! But there's no electricity in the town hall."

"But suppose I can get electric current run in there specially, what then?"

"My! don't disrupt the town management on my account—but do it if you can."

"All right. I think I can do it for you."

Well, I talked to Mr. Wilkshire, and told him my idea, and he thought it was a good one, and said he would personally go and see the electric light company, because he was accustomed to dealing with that kind of people, and make arrangements to have wires carried into the town hall for the exhibition.

He agreed to supply all the equipment needed and to send two demonstrators from Hartford during the five days of the fair, and that was to be my contribution to Mrs. Twombley's "pet," as she called foreign missions; and, at the same time, I would be introducing a new line of merchandise, under the very best of auspices, to the people of Farmdale.

When I talked to Betty about the electrical exhibition she suggested:

[Pg 172]"Why not carry it through a little farther. I read a lot in Hardware Times about business efficiency. Why don't you try to get efficiency in the home—give an exhibition of home efficiency?"

I guess the blank expression on my face told her that I didn't follow her meaning.

"I mean," she said, "along with the electrical devices why not show carpet sweepers and time-saving kitchen devices, and everything that will help the woman of the house to greater efficiency in her work, or give her better results. Make a big exhibition, and call it the domestic efficiency exhibition."

"That's not a bad idea at all," I replied. I thought a little while. "Not a bad idea at all." I thought a little bit longer. "It's a bully good idea!" And I ran right off to call up Mrs. Twombley.

"Mrs. Twombley," I cried, quite excited, "I'm going to do that thing up good and brown for you. I'm going to make it a household efficiency exhibition, and we'll have vacuum cleaners and carpet sweepers and washing machines and kitchen things—"

"Good heavens above!" her voice returned. "Who is this speaking, what is he speaking about, and has he got the right party?"

When I explained the matter, she said:

"I don't know, I'm sure, but I'll leave it to you—"

"Are you sure," asked Betty, when I came back, "that the electric-supply people will agree to your selling other things there, when they are providing the material for the big show?"

"I never thought of that!" I exclaimed. "I guess they won't! No. And I don't think now it would be fair to them to do it, for, if I want to sell electrical[Pg 173] supplies, it would probably be better not to spread the attraction over too many things. No, I'll confine myself just to electrical supplies, so as to make as big an impression with them as I can, concentrate the people's attention right on them, and give them a real bang-up start-off.

"That reminds me, Betty. You know those Sisk glass percolators? I'm going to drop them."

"Why, I thought you were selling so many of them!"

"Yes, I am, but I got a letter from them yesterday telling me that the discount had been reduced from 40 to 25 per cent., and there's nothing doing at that price."