“Course I don’t mean to say that every
ad I write is literally true or that I always believe
everything I say when I give some buyer a good strong
selling-spiel. You see—you see it’s
like this: In the first place, maybe the owner
of the property exaggerated when he put it into my
hands, and it certainly isn’t my place to go
proving my principal a liar! And then most folks
are so darn crooked themselves that they expect a
fellow to do a little lying, so if I was fool enough
to never whoop the ante I’d get the credit for
lying anyway! In self-defense I got to toot my
own horn, like a lawyer defending a client—his
bounden duty, ain’t it, to bring out the poor
dub’s good points? Why, the Judge himself
would bawl out a lawyer that didn’t, even if
they both knew the guy was guilty! But even so,
I don’t pad out the truth like Cecil Rountree
or Thayer or the rest of these realtors. Fact,
I think a fellow that’s willing to deliberately
up and profit by lying ought to be shot!”
Babbitt’s value to his clients was rarely better
shown than this morning, in the conference at eleven-thirty
between himself, Conrad Lyte, and Archibald Purdy.
V
Conrad Lyte was a real-estate speculator. He
was a nervous speculator. Before he gambled he
consulted bankers, lawyers, architects, contracting
builders, and all of their clerks and stenographers
who were willing to be cornered and give him advice.
He was a bold entrepreneur, and he desired nothing
more than complete safety in his investments, freedom
from attention to details, and the thirty or forty
per cent. profit which, according to all authorities,
a pioneer deserves for his risks and foresight.
He was a stubby man with a cap-like mass of short gray
curls and clothes which, no matter how well cut, seemed
shaggy. Below his eyes were semicircular hollows,
as though silver dollars had been pressed against
them and had left an imprint.
Particularly and always Lyte consulted Babbitt, and
trusted in his slow cautiousness.
Six months ago Babbitt had learned that one Archibald
Purdy, a grocer in the indecisive residential district
known as Linton, was talking of opening a butcher
shop beside his grocery. Looking up the ownership
of adjoining parcels of land, Babbitt found that Purdy
owned his present shop but did not own the one available
lot adjoining. He advised Conrad Lyte to purchase
this lot, for eleven thousand dollars, though an appraisal
on a basis of rents did not indicate its value as above
nine thousand. The rents, declared Babbitt, were
too low; and by waiting they could make Purdy come
to their price. (This was Vision.) He had to bully
Lyte into buying. His first act as agent for Lyte
was to increase the rent of the battered store-building
on the lot. The tenant said a number of rude
things, but he paid.
Now, Purdy seemed ready to buy, and his delay was
going to cost him ten thousand extra dollars—the
reward paid by the community to Mr. Conrad Lyte for
the virtue of employing a broker who had Vision and
who understood Talking Points, Strategic Values, Key
Situations, Underappraisals, and the Psychology of
Salesmanship.
