A Man of Samples | Page 3

way that pleased him mightily. I could see that, but he finally said he didn't intend to buy a gun that day, but would some time in the fall, and he passed calmly out.
I looked at Mr. Jordan, and he looked at me. "Are you mad?" I asked.
"No; I'm used to it."
"Then try a cigar."
As we smoked and discussed mean customers, I put in some good licks for my house, and by and by heard Jordan say:
"I lied to you about those bull-dogs; I didn't buy any of Layton; you may send me six."

CHAPTER II.
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