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The shoe man explained that, like the merchant, he had hated to leave the old country, but that America–sad to state–was a more thrifty country and he had invested in a large shoe factory in Boston. He said he was merely out traveling for his health and to look over the country with a view to placing a traveling salesman on the territory. The Englishman gave him a large open order, supposing, of course, that a lord would carry no samples. The old merchant was so tickled at having a chance to buy from a lord that, notwithstanding his reserve, he one day told his dry goods man about it. This was shortly before the goods arrived.

“Why, that fellow,” said the dry goods man, “is no more of a lord than I am. He is not even an Englishman.” He did not know that he was “queering” a bill, for this is one thing that one traveling man will never deliberately do to another. He knows too well what a battle it is to win a bill, and he will not knowingly snatch from the victor the spoils of war.

The old Englishman returned the “lord’s” goods without opening the cases.

Although the lord did not steal a base on his sharp run, I know of one instance where a shrewd traveling man sold a bill by a smart trick.

In Ohio there was a merchant notoriously hard to approach. He was one of the kind who, when you told him your business, would whistle and walk away and who would always have something to do in another part of the store when you drew near him the second time. What an amount of trouble a man of that kind makes for himself! The traveling man is always ready to “make it short.” When he goes into a store the thing he wishes to know, and how quickly, is: “Can I do any business here?” The merchant will have no trouble getting rid of the drummer if he will only be frank. All he must do is to give a fair reason why he does not wish to do business. He can say: “I have bought”–that is the best one, if it is true; it is the index finger pointing out a short route for the salesman straight to the front door. Or, he can say: “I have all in that line I can use for some time.” “I have an old personal friend to whom I give my trade for these goods–he treats me squarely” is a good answer. So, too, is the statement, “I have an established trade on this brand, my customers ask for it, and it gives them entire satisfaction–what’s the use of changing?” Any one of these statements will either rid the merchant of the traveling man or else raise an issue soon settled.

I will let my friend himself tell how he got the ear of the whistling merchant.

“The boys had told me old Jenkins was hard to get next to, but I made up my mind to reach him. It’s lots more fun anyway to land a trout in swift water than to pull a carp out of a muddy pond; besides the game fish is better to eat. When I went into his store, Jenkins fled from me, and going into his private office, slammed the door behind him. I made for the office. I had not come within ten feet from the window before the old man said gruffly: ‘I don’t want to buy any goods; I don’t want even to listen to a traveling man this morning.’

“This did not stop me. I walked to the window, took a pad of paper out of my pocket and wrote on a slip: ‘I have some samples I would like to show you. I will bring them over.’ I handed the slip to old Jenkins and left him. The man who can do the odd, unexpected thing, is the one who gets the ear.