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“‘Vell, Maircus, I like you and I like your goots, but, ach Himmel! der clooty vetter!’ And, do you know, I couldn’t get the old man to do any business with me because he thought the sun was never going to shine again? I cannot understand just how he argued it with himself, but he was deaf to all of my coaxing. Finally I said to him:

“‘Sam, you are kicking about the cloudy weather but I will make you a present of a box of cigars if the sun does not shine before we write down this order.’

“The old man was something of a gambler,–in fact the one pleasure of his life was to play penochle for two bits a corner after he closed up. So he said to me, ‘Vell, Maircus, you can wride down der orter, and eef dot sun shines before we get t’rough, you can sheep der goots.’

“This was the first time that I ever played a game against the Powers That Be. I started in and the sky grew darker and darker. I monkeyed along for an hour and a half, and, just to kill time, tried to switch the old man from patterns he had selected to others that I ‘thought would be a little better.’ But the Powers were against me, and when I finished writing down the order it was cloudier than ever–and nearly night, too.

“Then an idea struck me. ‘Now, Sam,’ said I, ‘I’ve had a cinch on you all the time. You told me you were going to take this bill if the sun was shining when we got through writing down this order. Don’t you know, Sam,’ said I, laughing at him, ‘the sun does shine and must shine every day. Sometimes a little cloud comes between it and the earth but that, you know, will soon pass away, and, cloud or no cloud, the sun shines just the same.’

“‘Vell, Maircus,’ said the old man, ‘I cannod see any sunshine out der vindow, but dere’s so much off id in your face dot you can sheep dot bill.’ ‘Well, Sam,’ said I, ‘if that’s the case, I guess I will buy you that box of cigars.'”

Another thing: Don’t beef!

There is a slight difference between the “grouch” and the “beef.” The man may be grouchy without assuming to give a reason therefor, but when he “beefs” he usually thinks there is cause for it. I knew a man who once lost a good customer just because he beefed when a man to whom he had sold a bill of goods countermanded the order. The merchant was stretching his capital in his business to the limit. Things grew a little dull with him and he figured it out, after he had placed all of his orders, that he had bought too many goods. He used the hatchet a little all the way around. I had some of my own order cut off, but instead of kicking about it, I wrote him that he could even cut off more if he felt it was to his advantage; that I did not wish to load him up with more than he could use; that when the time came that I knew his business better than he did it would then be time for me to buy him out. But a friend of mine did not take this same turn. Instead, he wrote to the man–and the merchant thought a good deal of him, personally, too–that he had bought the goods in good faith, that expense had been made in selling the bill and that he ought to keep them.

“Well, now, that was the very worst thing he could have done because it went against the customer’s grain. He let his countermand stand and since that time he has never bought any more goods from his old friend. He simply marked him off his list because it was very plain to him that the friendship of the past had been for what there was in it.”