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Clerks, Cranks And Touches
by
“I shall see you at one thirty, suh. Will you excuse me now?” With this the old gentleman returned to his office. I immediately left the store. The important thing to get a merchant to do is to consent to look at your goods. When you can get him to do this, keep out of his way until he is ready to fulfil his engagement. Then, when you have done your business, pack your goods and leave town. What the merchant wants chiefly with the traveling man is to do business with him. True, much visiting and many odd turns are sometimes necessary to get the merchant to the point of “looking,” but when you get him there, leave him until he is ready to “look.” Friendships, for sure, will develop, but don’t force them.
At one twenty-nine that afternoon I started for the “old crank’s” store. It was just across the street from my sample room. I met him in the middle of the street. He was a crank about keeping his engagements promptly. I respect a man who does this. The old gentleman looked carefully, but not tediously, at my goods, never questioning a price. In a little while, he said: “I shall do some business with you, suh; your goods suit me.”
I never sold an easier bill in my life and never met a more pleasant gentleman. Our business finished, he offered me a cigar and asked that he might sit and smoke while I packed my samples. Yes, offered me a cigar. And I took it. It was lots better than offering him one. He enjoyed giving me one more than he would have enjoyed smoking one of mine. In fact, it flatters any man more to accept a favor from him than to do one for him. Many traveling men spend two dollars a day on cigars which they give away. They are not only throwing away money but also customers sometimes. The way for the salesman on the road to handle the man he wants to sell goods to in order to get his regard is to treat him as he does the man of whom he expects no favors. When you give a thing to a man he generally asks in his own mind, “What for?”
Before I left the town of the “old crank” I met with another of his peculiarities. I was out of money. I asked him if he would cash a sight draft for me on my firm for a hundred dollars.
“No, suh,” said he. “I will not. I was once swindled that way and I now make it a rule never to do that.”
Needles stuck in me all over.
“But,” continued the old gentleman, “I shall gladly lend you a hundred dollars or any amount you wish.”
For the many years I went to the town of the “old crank,” our relationship was most cordial. I believe we became friends. More than once did he drop business and go out fishing with me. Since the first day we met I have often recalled the words of my table companion: “Those we meet are, to a great extent, but reflections of ourselves.”
Recalling the predicament I was in for a moment in the town of the “old crank,” reminds me of an experience I once had. As a rule, I haven’t much use for the man on the road who borrows money. If he hasn’t a good enough stand-in with his firm to draw on the house or else to have the firm keep him a hundred or two ahead in checks, put him down as no good. The man who is habitually broke on the road is generally the man who thinks he has the “gentle finger,” and that he can play in better luck than the fellow who rolls the little ivory ball around a roulette wheel. There are not many of this kind, though; they don’t last long. It’s mostly the new man or the son of the boss who thinks he can pay room rent for tin horns.