When I reached T. I had a very disagreeable duty before me, namely, to fix a misunderstanding with a customer. The house had written me: “Atkinsen & Co. bought a bill last October from Ned on 60 days' time; goods went exactly as ordered. When the bill became due we sent a statement, with a mem. that if not heard from in ten days we would draw. In reply they sent us a letter saying the goods were sold them under arrangement by which they are to be paid for when sold, and that we had better hold our draft, etc. We wrote that we did not do that kind of business; that our terms were plainly stated on the invoice, and that upon receipt of that, if not correct, they should have notified us at once. To this they sent a 'Smart Aleck' letter, and when we drew on them allowed our draft to be returned. Settle the matter up; take back the goods, if no better way suggests itself, but close it up. And close up our deal with them; they are the kind of men we do not want to do business with.”
To be ordered to get money out of a slow customer is bad enough, but to have to settle an account with a mean one is a thousand times worse. The slow customer is usually ready to dun himself, and full of apologies for his slowness, but the “Smart Aleck” who wants to be small has a hundred arguments ready at hand to prove that he is a very superior person who proposes to stand on his rights. Every traveling man has such customers as this “on his list,” and is occasionally called upon to tackle them.
I had made up my mind that I would find Atkinson rather tall and slim, but he wasn't; he was a pleasant-looking man, and I handed out my card as if I had called around to sell him a big bill. His face lost some of the smile when he saw the firm's name, but I began to talk of trade and the weather, and kept it up until I had forced him into an appearance of being sociable. Eventually I led the talk around to his stock and was fully prepared for his decisive “We do not need any.” I mentioned guns, rifles, cartridges, caps—everything—but he was full. I was determined that he should introduce the subject of the account, and this he did when I made a move as if to go.
“Did your house tell you about our account?”
“They told me to stick to all the money I could get,” I said, pleasantly.
“Have you a statement of our account with you?”
“I think I have.” And I appeared to be searching for it, though, of course, I knew the exact page and line it was on. “Here it is: $43.30.”
He went to his ledger, found it correct, I suppose, and then from his cash drawer counted out the amount and asked for a receipt. I gave him one, thanked him for the money, and then remarked that I was sorry there had been any misunderstanding about the terms.
“I like to see a house live up to its agreement,” he said, in a surly tone.
“Don't we?”
“No, sir; these goods were to be paid for when sold.”
“But the invoice is plainly marked sixty days; why didn't you report such an agreement when you received the invoice?”
“I don't care for the invoice. Don't I get any amount of invoices where all of the discount does not show? When I pay them I deduct the extra, and that is the end of it.”
I concluded a little plain talk would neither do us or him any harm; he was probably in a state of mind that would prevent him buying of us very soon again. I said: “I am satisfied that you have been long enough in business to know that staple goods, such as you had from us, are never sold on any such terms as you state you bought these at. I made inquiries about you of your neighbors, and every one said they had misunderstandings with you, and are not on good terms with you, and if I could see your correspondence I am pretty sure I would find we are not the only house out of town that you have had just such disputes with. I simply say to you, and for your own good, Mr. Atkinson, that you are making a mistake. My orders from my house were not to sell you, and while I know you can get along without us, you can't afford to keep driving houses away from you without hurting yourself. I'm obliged to you for paying me; that is all I came in here for.”
He told me that I and my house could go to the devil, and in that pleasant frame of mind we parted. I suppose I cut down the bridge between him and us, but I venture to say other houses had the benefit of my frankness.
I spoke of this to an old traveling man whom I met at the hotel. “Yes,” said he, “there's too much coddling among us all. We smooth over this, and give in on that, and the result is we make it all the easier for the fellow to be small the next time. I'm selling axes, and, of course, I have to warrant them. Do you warrant guns?”
“Not to speak of.”
“Then you ought to thank your stars. Warranting is the most infernal device ever brought out to make men mean and dishonest. I put it down to the dealer, when I sell him, in the plainest way I know how, that we warrant an ax only against being soft or breaking from a plain flaw. When I come around in the spring he pulls from under the counter two or three or more rusty axes that he hands to me, with the remark that 'here are some poor ones.' I pick up an ax and find some idiot ground it as thin as a razor, and the edge broke out so that it looks like a saw, I ask him what is the matter with it.'Too hard; brittle as glass.' 'But I didn't warrant against being too hard.' 'But you expect your axes to stand, don't you?' 'This would stand if ground properly.' 'Oh, yes; you fellows always have some loop-hole to get out of your warrant.' This rather staggers me, so I pick up the next one. 'What is the matter with this?' 'Soft.' As I hold the edge to the light I can see a slight bend in the bit. The man who used it had it stick, and in his efforts to loosen it, he had given it such a terrible wrench that the edge had bent a trifle. To a man knowing anything of the proper temper of an ax the fact of that slight bend is in its favor, and the work of grinding it out would have been much less than it was to remove the helve. But I pass that, as there is no use to argue that a slight twist does not show soft temper, and I pick up the third one. It has a corner broken off; the break is still bright, but I am calmly told there was a bad flaw there. I start to explain why I know, from the shape of the break that there was no flaw, but he twits me again with wanting to go back on my warrant, and I stop right there. Now, this is the history of nine out of ten transactions. The retailer takes back everything a customer brings back for fear of losing that customer's trade. The jobber takes back from the retailer, knowing it is unjust, but he is afraid that any hesitancy on his part will damage his trade. And the poor devil of a manufacturer takes it off the jobber's hands and cannot help himself. There is a deuced lot of cowardice in business nowadays. It goes back through the dealers till it reaches the consumer, and it encourages him to make any kind of claim he sees fit to cover his negligence, ignorance, or maliciousness.”
Sitting in the cars that evening, I overheard a traveling man say: “I find it a little bit harder each week to leave home. I have a little girl of three, and I see so little of her it makes me discontented. Her mother knows just what time I ought to come up the street, and she and the baby are watching for me at that hour every Saturday evening. When they see me the little one comes running to meet me. Her excitement and her running just take her breath away, so that when she gets to me she cannot speak a word. But she can squeeze me and kiss me. How I do hang on to her all the time I'm at home! I go to bed two nights in the week like a man should. I wake up to find those little arms around me! And on Monday morning I have to pull myself away. I tell you it's almighty hard.”
His voice had a tremor in it, as if a very little encouragement would bring tears.
“Yes,” said the other, “it is hard. I've been there. I had a girl six years old that was to me all yours is to you, and all she ever can be. I started off one Monday morning leaving her as happy as a lark. On Wednesday I was telegraphed to come in, and when I got home Thursday morning she didn't know me. Just as long as she could speak she kept asking for me. I never start out on a Monday morning but that I think of her, and I never walk toward the house Saturday night that I do not miss her. I don't know, but it seems to me that a traveling man has no business to have a wife and family.”
“I never knew you had lost a child,” said the other; “if I should lose my baby I believe I would go insane.”
“Oh, no, you wouldn't; you would do just as every one else does; you'd go on and suffer. But the men that can be with their families seven days in the week ought to thank their God every hour of the day.”
“I travel a good deal by team,” said a third, “and am frequently driving as late as 10 or 11 o'clock at night. As I go along the road and see the light shining out of the windows, and see family groups in their homes, gathered around the lamp, I tell you, boys, I get homesick. It's the time of day I want to be at home with my family. I envy every man I see in such a home, and I contrast his condition, surrounded with his wife and children, and a long night of rest before him, with my work. I finish up my day at a late hour at night, then perhaps have to get up at an unearthly hour in the morning to catch a train. There's mighty little poetry in this kind of a life.”
“But, after all,” said the first speaker, “our wives suffer the most. They have the responsibility of the home and children on their shoulders all the time, and they worry more or less over us. My wife never sees a boy coming to the door with a circular but she thinks he has a dispatch saying I am either maimed or killed in a railroad accident. Then if the children are sick she has to shoulder the burden alone, and it is all the greater because she always tortures herself by believing that she must be in some way to blame. I tell you our wives have the hardest part to bear.”
“That's so,” came from several.
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