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“Well, what do you think happened? After two hours the mother came back and got the baby and I never saw her husband again! A competitor of mine had ‘swiped’ him as he came in the hotel office and sold him his bill of goods.”

Although my friend Percy who rolled the baby carriage back and forth lost out by this operation, I would advise my friends on the road to roll every baby buggy–belonging to a possible customer–that they have a chance to get their hands on. When the merchant gives the traveling man an opportunity to do him some sort of a favor outside of straight business dealing, he then gives the drummer the best possible chance to place him under obligations which will surely be repaid sometime. But don’t go too far.

Down in Texas in one of the larger towns, just after the Kishinef horror, the Hebrew clothing merchants held a charity ball. If you were to eliminate the Hebrew from the clothing business the ranks of dealers in men’s wearing apparel would be devastated. One of my friends in the clothing business told me how he and a furnishing goods friend of his made hay at that charity ball:

“The day that I struck town, one of my customers said to me, ‘We want you to go to the show tomorrow night and open the ball with a few remarks. Will you?’

“Just for fun I said, ‘To be sure I will, Ike.’ I did not think I would be taken in earnest, but the next day I received a program, and right at the head of it was my name down for the opening speech. Well, I was up against it and I had to make good. You may take my word for it that I felt a little nervous that night when I came to the big hall and saw it full of people waiting for the opening address. I needed to have both sand on the bottoms of my shoes and sand in my upper story to keep from slipping down on the waxed floor! But, as I was in for it, I marched bravely up and sat down for a few minutes in the big chair.

“Then the first thing I knew I was introduced. Now I was really in sympathy with the purpose of this gathering and I felt, sincerely, the atrocity of the Kishinef massacre. Consequently, I was able to speak from the heart in telling my audience how every human being, without regard to race, was touched by such an outrage. Had I been running for Congress there, I would have received every vote in the house. The women sent special requests by their husbands, asking the honor of a dance with me.

“Remember that the traveling man must not overlook the wife of his customer. Generally a man’s nearest and truest friend is his wife. The business man feels that she is his best counselor. If you can get the good will of the ‘women folks’ of your customer’s household you may be sure you will be solid with him for keeps.

“But I must not overlook my furnishing goods friend. He had been trained for an opera singer and would have made a success of it had he kept up with that profession. His business, however, prospered so well that he could never go and look the prompter in the face. He had a rich, full, deep voice which, when he sang the Holy City, made the chandeliers fairly hum. There is something in the melodious human voice, anyway, that goes away down deep into the heart. My friend won everybody there with a song. He with his music and I with my speech had done a courtesy to those merchants which they and their wives appreciated. You know you can feel it, somehow, when you are in true accord with those you meet.