“That night I couldn’t sleep. I was
up early next morning and had a good fire in my sample
room. I had sense enough to make the place where
I was going to show my goods as comfortable as I could.
I sold a bill of $2,500 and never cut a price.
“When I got home I put the order on the old
man’s desk and went to my stool to make out
bills. The old man came in. He picked up
the order and looked over it carefully, then he asked
one of the boys: ’Vere’s Chim?
Tell him to com heer. I vant to see him.’
“I walked into the office. The old man
was looking at me over his specs as I went in.
He grabbed me by the hand and said so loud you could
hear him all over the house: ’Ah, Chim,
dot vas tandy orter. How dit you do id mitoud
cotting prices, Chim? You vas a motel for efery
men we haf in der house. I did nod know we hat
a salesman in der office. By Himmel! you got
a chob on der roat right avay, Chim.’”
FIRST EXPERIENCES IN SELLING.
I sat with a group of friends around a table one evening
not long ago, in one of the dining rooms of the Brown
Palace Hotel in Denver. The dining room was done
in dark stained oak, the waiters whispered to each
other in foreign tongues, French and German; on the
walls of the room were pictures of foreign scenes
painted by foreign hands; but, aside from this, everything
about us was strictly American. We had before
us blue points with water-cress salad, mountain trout
from the Rockies, and a Porterhouse three inches thick.
We had just come out of the brush and were going to
“Sunday” in Denver. It was Saturday
night, A man who has never been on the road does not
know what it is to get a square meal after he has
been “high-grassing it” for a week or two,
and when such can become the pleasure of a drummer,
he quickly forgets the tough “chuck” he
has been chewing for many days.
We were all old friends, had known each other in a
different territory many years before; so, when we
came together again, this time in Denver, not having
seen each other for many years, we talked of old times
and of when we met with our first experiences on the
road.
When a man first begins to hustle trunks he has a
whole lot to learn. Usually he has been a stock-boy,
knowing very little of the world beyond the bare walls
in which he has filled orders. To his fellow
travelers the young man on the road is just about as
green as they make them, but the rapid way in which
he catches on and becomes an old-timer, is a caution.
A great many decry the life of the traveling man,
even men on the road themselves are discontented,
but if you want to get one who is truly happy and
satisfied with his lot, find one who, after having
enjoyed the free and independent (yes, and delightful!)
life of the road, and then settled down for a little
while as a merchant on his own hook, insurance agent,
or something of that kind, and finally has gone back
to his grips, and you will find a man who will say:
“Well, somebody else can do other things, but,
for my part, give me the road.”
