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“‘All right,’ said Gus. ‘I’ll repeat to the old man every word you’ve said. I’m glad you’ve called him down. It’ll do him good.’

“And you bet your life I tore his order up without sending it in to the house and drew a line through his name on my book, and have never solicited his business since.”

“You did him just exactly right,” said the necktie man. “While I squared myself with my friend Morris, I was once independent with a customer who cancelled an order on me. He came in to meet me at Kansas City. Two more of the boys were also there then. He placed orders with all of us. His name was Stone. The truth is he came in and brought his wife and boy with him just because he wanted to take a little flyer at our expense. We had written him telling him that we’d pay his expenses if he would come in. He went ahead and took a few hours of our time to place his orders. At the time he did so I merely thought him a good liberal buyer but, as I now look back at the way he bought, he slipped down most too easy to stick.

“Sure enough, in three or four weeks the firm wrote me that Stone had cancelled his order, stating that he believed he had enough goods on hand to run him, that season, but that possibly very late he might reinstate the order.

“The fellow was good so I thought it wouldn’t do very much harm to try to get him to take the goods. However, I employed very different tactics from those I used with my friend Morris. I wrote him this way:

“‘My dear Brother Stone: I have received a letter from the firm stating that you have cancelled the order which you placed with me in Kansas City. You know not how much I thank you for cancelling this order. It gave me a great deal of pleasure to sell you this bill of goods, and now that you have cancelled it, I want you to be sure and make your cancellation stick because then, sooner than I had really expected, I shall have that same old pleasure over again.

“‘It isn’t always profit that a man should look for in business. What good does it do him to make a whole lot of money unless he can feel good on the inside? The feel is about all there is in life anyway.

“‘Now in future, you go right on as you have in the past, buy your goods from the other fellow. He will not charge you a great deal more for them than I would and your loss will not be very great in that regard; but each time that I come around be sure to take a lot of my time and place an order with me, even if you do cancel it.

“‘Don’t even trouble yourself about returning the fifteen dollars expense money that was given you, because the pleasure I had with you was worth that much to me alone. I shall square this matter myself with the other boys. No, I won’t do that because I’m sure that they feel in this matter just as I do.

“‘With very kindest regards, and ever at your service, believe me, Brother Stone,

“‘Truly yours,
“‘————‘”

“He wired the house to ship the bill and sent the message paid.”

“That was what I call a grafter,” said one of the boys.

“Yes, you bet your life,” said the wall paper man.

“I myself once cured a man of the cancelling habit. You know there are some merchants over the country who are afflicted with this disease.

“I had heard of a druggist out in Pennsylvania who was noted for placing an order one morning and cancelling it that very night. He had done a trick of this kind on me once and I’d made up my mind that I was going to play even with him. I walked him over to my sample room early in the morning. I had my samples all spread out so that I could handle him quickly. There were a lot of new patterns out that season– flaming reds, greens, cherry colors, blues, ocean greens–all sorts of shades and designs.