A Man of Samples | Page 5

he heard that his competitor had a trade on them he began to feel that he must have some. Seven-eighths of the goods sold are sold in this way. Very few men do business on their own judgment. Their competitors make their prices, select their styles, and force them to carry certain stock. The drummer's best card is always: This is selling like fire; Smith took a gross, Brown half a gross, Jones three dozen, and you will miss it if you do not try a few. Such dealers always have the larger part of their capital locked up in goods they bought because others had bought the same goods.
I repeated my price to Tucker, and he told me to send him a few. "By the way," said he, "what are your terms?"
"Sixty days."
"Does your house draw the day a bill falls due?"
"No; the house is slow about drawing upon customers, and they always give ten days' notice before making draft."
"Well, I don't like to be drawn on. The house that draws on me can't sell me again. I can't draw on my trade, and I'm devilish glad to get my money in six months, but you fellows in the city expect a man to come to the exact minute. I don't want any drawing on me."
It was an excellent place to have delivered a lecture on the beauties of prompt payments. I could have told Brother Tucker that if he did not see his way clear to pay his bill when due he should not buy it, and if his customers did not pay promptly he should dun them harder or keep his goods. But the traveling man is not sent out to inculcate business morals, and he is too anxious to sell a bill to run any risks by disagreeing with a buyer. I did what all others would have done in my place. I assured Mr. Tucker I would be as easy with him regarding payments as any house in the world would dare be, and that point safely out of the way, I sold him several items quite smoothly. We came to guns.
"What is Parker's worth?"
"Twenty-five per cent, off factory list."
"What! Why, here's a quotation from Cincinnati of 25 and 10!"
"Let me see it, please. I have not heard of any such figures."
"Bob, where is that list of Reachum's?"
"I don't know."
"D--n it, you had it."
"Then it must be in the drawer."
Tucker emptied the drawer, looked through a pile of papers, but could not find the circular he was looking for He was annoyed by it, and I was sorry.
"Well, let it go," said he, "but that was the price."
"There must be a mistake somewhere," said I, "for the goods cost that at the factory in largest lots."
"There was no mistake," he said sharply; "I know what I am talking about. The discount offered was 25 and 10."
I hastened to assure him that I had not meant that he was mistaken, but that Reachum must have made a mistake.
"That's no concern of mine," said he, "and I rather think that Reachum is a man who knows his business as well as any of you. If you are higher than he is on guns you probably are on other goods. I guess you had better cancel that order."
Here was a pretty how-do-you-do! How was I to get out of this box? I confess I was in great doubts as to what to do or say. I dared not sell Parker's guns at any such price, yet the man would cancel the order and probably always have a grudge against the house unless I sold him now. I could not believe that Reachum had made this price, and yet there was no telling what that house might or might not do.
"How many Parker guns do you want?" I asked.
"I don't want any. I only asked because it is a leading thing, and if a house is not low on that I conclude it is high on other goods."
"I was going to say," I said, "that I would meet the price." I wasn't going to say anything of the kind, but as he didn't want any I was safe in saying it now.
"Then you may send me two. I think I know a place where I can sell two."
Just so! I was in for it again, and in for it bad. Sometimes it pays to be smart, and sometimes it does not. This was one of the latter times. As a matter of fact I had no business to quote a discount greater than 20 per cent, but I had said 25 so as to make a good impression on him, and at 25 and 10 I was sure to catch Hail Columbia from the house.
Just then Bob, who had