When Mr. Jordan gave me the order for six “bull-dog” revolvers, I felt that I had made a conquest; I went carefully through my list, adding something here and there, until I had made a very pretty bill with him. So, although he met me as if he wanted to punch me in the head, we parted on the best of terms. Where should I go next? A sign farther down the street said “Hardware,” so I started down that way.
A man who carries a mixed stock is easier to sell goods to than is the man who makes a specialty of one line. In the house we always had a closer price for the dealer who made guns a specialty than for the hardware man who kept a few guns and revolvers as a small branch of his stock.
“John Topoff” was the name over the door, so I went in, carefully noticing the stock, the way it was arranged, and the amount, in order to get some idea of the kind of man the owner was.
“Is Mr. Topoff in?” I asked a young man who was blacking stoves and who I was sure was not the man I wanted.
“Naw,” he said, as he brushed away.
“Will he be in soon?”
“Naw, he's dead. There's Mr. Tucker, he's the boss.”
The young man spoke as if answering the questions about Mr. Topoff had become a burden to him, and if that honest hardware man had been dead long I didn't blame the boy for getting tired of him.
Mr. Tucker had been studiously keeping his back toward me, as if I was to expect no encouragement from him, but he turned when I spoke his name and I introduced myself.
“Don't need anything in your line,” said he, as if he wished I would accept that as a final verdict and get out.
What would you have done, respected reader, if you had been in my place? I would gladly have said “good-day,” and gone at once if it were not for the fact that my present business was to get orders, and the only way to secure them was to work for them. So I ignored Mr. Tucker's ill-timed remark and proceeded to be sociable.
I explained as pleasantly as I could why it was our house was sending out a new man. I got him interested enough to ask a question or two, which was a point gained, and finally I came round to his stock, but I carefully ignored guns and talked of nails; something I knew nothing about.
Don't you know you can pay no one a higher compliment than to place him in the position of a teacher to you? I picked that idea up somewhere, and I put it in practice by asking Mr. Tucker for information as to hardware and hardware houses. He was soon talking warmly and as if he was enjoying himself, and I was wondering when would be a good time to get guns started, when a little boy came to the door and shouted: “Pa! ma wants you to come home a minute, just as soon as you can!”
He started off without a word, and I proceeded to get acquainted with the young man who said “Naw!”
Of all creatures on the face of the earth the average clerk is the easiest to pump. The fact that a man is from a wholesale house seems to be sufficient guarantee that he may safely be told anything regarding prices, and where goods came from. The moment Tucker went out the door Bob stopped his work, and for fifteen minutes he kept his tongue wagging about the cost of goods and all he knew about them. He was so incautious that I soon learned his cost mark, and then did not need to ask cost afterward.
How did I do it? Bless you! Every traveling man does it in spite of himself. For instance, I pick up a box and notice it is marked L.X.K., and I ask the clerk, while I look at the revolver, What did this cost?
He turns the box up to see the mark, and answers, $2.25.
This may be the truth, or may not. If it is, “L” is 2 and “K” is 5, and “X” means “repeat.” So by and by I find a box marked B.L.K., and I ask the cost of that. He answers, $1.25. I am now sure that B is 1, L is 2 and K is 5, and I can easily guess that A and C are 3 and 4. By finding boxes with other letters on, and learning from the boy what the mark is, I soon have “Black horse” as the cost mark in that store. I make a note of this in my trip book so that I can use it when I am here again, or when our other man is here.
My way now is tolerably smooth. If he really needs goods the merchant will be willing to order at prices paid before; if he thinks he does not need anything I may tempt him by quoting prices a little under what he paid. In either case I am in good shape to make a fight for an order; thanks to the clerk's loose tongue and lack of sense.
A customer comes in and wants a file. I listen to the conversation, trying to get hold of any hint that may be useful to me by and by. Another man wants a box of cartridges. My ears are wide open now.
“Have you the 'U.S.'?”
“U.S.—U.S. What do you mean?” asks the clerk.
“I want the kind with U.S. on the end.”
“What good is that?”
“Good to go. I like that kind. Have you got them?”
“I don't know; yes; no, they ain't either! They're U.M.C.”
“Don't want 'em!”
Now I was temporarily selling the U.S. cartridge, so I made a note of what the man said, to be used on Tucker, but I took up the conversation and convinced the customer that the U.M.C. make of cartridges was good; he finally bought a box and went off apparently satisfied.
Just then Tucker came in.
I made some laughing allusion to pig-headed customers, and the clerk at once opened up on the “fool” who thought one cartridge was better than another. When the young man was back at his stove I started out to sell Tucker a bill. He was backward about buying; didn't know our house; always bought of Simmons; did not like to have so many bills; always got favors from Simmons, and despised our city on general principles.
I agreed with him on every point, but (Oh! these “buts”) I also wanted an order. I took out my bull-dog revolver that was selling at $2.85; he had none like it in stock; it was the leading pistol, retailing readily at $4 to $5, according to locality. “I want to send you a few of these at a special net price,” said I; “the regular price is $3; I will sell you at wouldn't have the d—n things as a gift,” said he.
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