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“We really did not think anything about the business side that night. I forgot it altogether until, upon leaving the hall, my friend Ike said to me: ‘Tonight we dance, tomorrow we sell clot’ing again.’ Both of us did a good business in that town on the strength of the charity ball, and we have held our friends there as solid customers. I say ‘solid customers’ but actually there is no such thing as a ‘solid customer.’ The very best friend you have will slip away from you sometime, break out your corral, and you must mount your broncho, chase him down and rope him in again.”

A mighty true saying, that! It is a great disappointment to call upon a customer with whom you have been doing business for a long time and find that he has already bought. Ofttimes this happens, however, because when you become intimate with a merchant you fail to continue to impress upon him the merits of your merchandise. However tight a rope the salesman feels that he has upon a merchant, he should never cease to let him know and make him feel that the goods he is selling are strictly right; for if he lets the line slacken a little the merchant may take a run and snap it in two.

One of my hat friends once told me how he went in to see an old customer named Williams, down in Texas, and found that he had bought a bill.

“When I reached home,” said he, “I handed my checks to a porter, slipped half a dollar into his hand and told him to rush my trunks right up to the sample room.”

This is a thing that a salesman should do on general principles. When he has spent several dollars and many hours to get to a town he should bear in mind that he is there for business, and that he cannot do business well unless he has his goods in a sample room. The man who goes out to work trade with his trunks at the depot does so with only half a heart. If a man persuades himself that there is no business in a town for him he would better pass it up. When he gets to a town the first thing he should do is to get out samples.

“When I had opened up my line,” continued my friend, “I went over to Williams’ store. I called at the window as usual and said, ‘Well, Williams, I am open and ready for you at any time. When shall we go over?’

“‘To tell the truth, Dickie,’ said he, ‘I’ve bought your line for this season. I might just as well come square out with it.’

“‘That is all right, Joe,’ said I. ‘If that is the case, it will save us the trouble of doing the work over again.’ In truth, my heart had sunk clear down to my heels, but I never let on. I simply smiled over the situation. The worst thing I could have done would be to get mad and pout about it. Had I done so I should have lost out for good. The salesman who drops a crippled wing weakens himself, so I put on a smiling front. This made Williams become apologetic, for when he saw that I took the situation good-naturedly he felt sorry that he could not give me business and began to make explanations.

“‘I tell you,’ said he, ‘this other man came around and told me that he could sell me a hat for twenty-one dollars a dozen as good as you are selling for twenty-four, and I thought it was to my business interest to buy them. I thought I might as well have that extra twenty-five cents on every hat as your firm.’

“There! He had given me my chance! ‘Williams,’ said I, ‘you bought these other goods on your judgment. Do you not owe it to yourself to know how good your judgment on hats is? You and I have been such good friends–Heaven knows I have not a better one in this country, Joe– that I never talk business to you and George, your buyer. Now, I’ll tell you what is a fair proposition. You and George come over to my sample room this afternoon at 1:30–I leave at four–and I will find out how good your judgment and George’s is when it comes to buying hats.’ Williams said: ‘All right, 1:30 goes.’