“Well, sir, the old man wouldn’t take
the ten—but he did get his hat and he’s
been an easy customer ever since!”
“Second and last call for dinner,” called
the dining car boy again.
“Guess this is our last chance,” spoke
up one of the boys. Then, stretching a little,
we washed our hands and went in to dinner.
TACTICS IN SELLING—II.
After we had finished dinner, all of the party came
back to our “road club room,” the smoker.
“The house,” said the furnishing goods
man, sailing on our old tack of conversation, “sometimes
makes it hard for us, you know. I once had a
case like this: One of my customers down in New
Orleans had failed on me. I think his muhulla
(failure) was forced upon him. Even a tricky
merchant does not bring failure upon himself if business
is good and he can help it, because, if he has ever
been through one, he knows that the bust-up does him
a great deal more harm than good. It makes ‘credit’
hard for him after that. But, you find lots of
merchants who, when business gets dull, and they must
fail, will either skin their creditors completely
or else settle for as few cents on the dollar as possible.
“Well, I had a man in market, once, when I was
traveling out of Philadelphia, who had ‘settled’
for 35 cents on the dollar. He had come out of
his failure with enough to leave him able to go into
business again, and, with anything like fair trade,
discount all his bills. I knew the season was
a fairly good one and felt quite sure that, for a
few years anyway, my man would be good. What was
lost on him was lost, and that was the end of it.
The best way to play even was on the profits of future
business.
“But our credit man, a most upright gentleman,
wasn’t particular about taking up the account
again. However, there I was on a commission basis!
I knew the man would pay for his goods and that it
was money in my pocket—and in the till
of the house—to sell it.
“I had seen my man at the hotel the evening
before and he’d said he would be around the
next morning about ten o’clock. I went down
to the store before that time and talked the thing
over with the credit man.
“Don’t want to have anything to do with
that fellow,’ he said. ’He skinned
us once and it’s only a matter of time until
he’ll do it again.’
“The head man of the firm came by about that
time and I talked it over with him. He had told
me only the day before that he had some ‘jobs’
he was very anxious to get rid of.
“‘Now,’ said I to him, ’I
believe I have a man from New Orleans who can use
a good deal of that plunder up on the sixth floor if
you’re willing to sell it to him. He uses
that kind of “Drek” and is now shaped
up so that he’ll not wish for more than sixty
day terms, and I’m sure he’d be able to
pay for it. He’s just failed, you know.’
