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Driving A Hard Bargain
by
At last, Miller’s supply was exhausted. Eldon called, one day, and ordered a dozen pieces, and received for answer–
“Not a piece in the store.”
“What? All gone?” said Eldon.
“Yes, you got the last some days ago.”
“I’m sorry for that. Lladd has a good stock on hand, but I don’t care about dealing with him, if I can help it. He’s a crusty sort of a fellow. Has no other house a supply?”
“Not to my knowledge. There is only a limited demand for the article, you know, and but few importers care about ordering it, for the reason that it goes off slowly.”
Eldon tried several places, but couldn’t find a yard. By the next day, his workmen would be idle; and so he had no alternative but to call upon Lladd. The merchant received him pleasantly; and they chatted for a while on matters and things in general. At last Eldon, though it went against the grain, said–
“I want you to send me twenty pieces of those goods around, with the bill.”
The merchant smiled blandly and replied–
“Sorry I can’t accommodate you. But I haven’t a yard in the store.”
“What?” Lladd looked blank.
“No. I have sold off the entire lot, and concluded not to import any more of that class of goods.”
“Ah? I supposed they were still on hand.”
“No, I placed them in the hands of Miller, and he has worked them all off for me at a considerable advance on former prices. He notified me, a week ago, that the lot was closed out, and rendered account sales at twelve and a half per piece.”
Lladd said all this seemingly unconscious that every word he was uttering fell like a blow upon his old customer. But he understood it all very well, and had caught the hard bargain maker in a trap he little dreamed had been laid for his feet.
Eldon stammered out some half coherent responses, and took his departure with more evidences of his discomfiture in his face and manner than he wished to appear. He had, in fact, been paying twelve dollars and a half for the very goods he had sent back because he couldn’t get them for ten dollars, at six months credit.
Eldon did not understand how completely he had overreached himself, until a part of his establishment had been idle for days, and he had been compelled to go to New York, and purchase some fifty pieces of the goods he wanted, for cash, at twelve dollars per piece, a price that he is still compelled to pay, as neither Lladd nor any other importing house in the city has since ordered a case from abroad. So much for driving a hard bargain.