And then, having in the most matter-of-fact manner given me an introduction to one of the biggest live wires in the trade, he turned around and sauntered out of the store.

CHAPTER XIV

SOME IDEAS IN BUYING

Isn't it astonishing how easy it is to do things wrong!

A salesman came in one morning from the Cincinnati Pencil Sharpener Company to offer me the local agency for the firm's pencil pointers. He walked into the store with what I said to myself was a silly grin, but La.r.s.en, when we were talking the matter over afterward, said he looked a jolly, good-natured fellow, so perhaps it was just my nerves twisting things around.

I was just going over my stock of b.u.t.t hinges when he came in. I was feeling disappointed because our stock was lower than I had thought it was, since I was getting so that I positively hated to buy! Well, I looked up at him and snapped:

"What do you want?"

"Good afternoon, Mr. Black," he replied. "I represent the Cincinnati Pencil Sharpener Company, and I want--"

Here I broke in testily:

"I'm too busy now. Besides, we're not in the stationery line. You want to go to a stationer with that thing. . . . Well," I said angrily, as he made no attempt to go, "if there is anything else you want to say, please say it quickly; if not, you will have to excuse me, because I am really too busy to waste time with drummers to-day."

"Excuse me, Mr. Black," he returned a little hotly, "I am not a drummer--I am a salesman. I came to talk with you about giving you a special agency, but it is evident that in your present frame of mind I would only be wasting my time. I will come back later."

With that he walked out of the store.

I certainly felt mad! I could have chewed ten-penny nails!

"Did you ever hear such impudence?" I cried to La.r.s.en.

La.r.s.en looked up with that queer little expression on his face that I had come to recognize as preceding something that disagreed with me, and said:

"Impudence by who, Boss?"

"By him, of course! I'm the Boss here, and, if there is any kow-towing to be done, he's the fellow to do it!"

La.r.s.en didn't say another word, but shook his head.

"La.r.s.en," said I testily, "you seem to take delight in pointing out flaws in my management!"

Again I saw that queer expression come into his face.

"_Management_," I cried, "not mismanagement! What was wrong with what I did just now?"

La.r.s.en did sometimes make me mad, but I usually found on thinking things over that he was very logical in his reasoning. I had learned a lot from him and I had come to depend on him a good deal, and he had got me so that he was quite free with me.

He walked toward me, leaned against a counter, and said:

"Boss, drummers like him makes money. More money than most retailers.

From money angle he is as good as people he sells to. He must know goods to sell them. In that way he is equal to the merchant. He travels over the country and he gets lots of ideas--and all that. He generally has good schooling and comes from good home. He is, in how he lives and who he knows, equal of his customers. Then, again, store keepers would be in a h----"

"Tut, tut!" I said.

"--In a deuce of a mess if traveling salesmen did not call. You hear about new stuff from drummers. Suppose you get mad and they won't call?

You are real loser. Simpson used to be that way. You know, Boss, I used to hear some of them salesmen d.a.m.n him like they meant it. One feller came here with agency for Stamford saws. Now, you know, Boss, Stamford saws is one of best agencies Barlow has. Simpson could have got it. I don't know why he come to Simpson first, because Barlow is--was--leading hardware man in town."

I smiled at the implied compliment.

"Well, in he come here, and Simpson treat him about like--well, he treat him like a dog. You know what that feller did?"

"No," I replied curiously, "what did he do?"

"He put his grip on the floor, walked around the counter, took hold of Simpson's nose and gave it one h----" I held up my finger warningly--"a deuce of a pull!"

My hand unconsciously went to my nose, and I saw a twinkle come into La.r.s.en's eyes as he noticed the movement.

"Well, that feller, he went right over to Barlow. Barlow knew a good thing when he saw it. He tied up that agency."

"Good Heavens," I said, "it never dawned on me that any traveling salesman wouldn't be only too tickled to do business with anybody he could!"

"I tell you, Boss," said La.r.s.en, "I have been in retail business now, let's see--forty years. The more I see of drummers the better they seem.

If I were boss of a store I'd never turn a salesman down cold. If I couldn't buy I would say no, like I was sorry. Some day that feller would have a real bargain. Would he offer it to the feller who b.a.l.l.s him out? No, sir-ree! He tip off to the feller who treated him white.

"Just think, Boss," he continued, "going around from town after town.

Lot of places he sleep at just like what a b.u.m has. Lots of folks give him cold turn-down. When he gets decent treatment from a merchant, he look upon it as a--what do you call the place in the sand where they have trees and water?"

"An oasis in the desert?"

"Yes, that's it, Boss. An oasis in the desert."

"La.r.s.en, you old vagabond, I believe you're right; and if that pencil sharpener fellow doesn't give his agency to Barlow"--I grinned as I said this--"I'll--I'll turn him down with a smile!"

"That's all right, Boss; but how you know you want to turn him down?"

"Oh, we don't want to handle those things. We're not in the stationery business. That's a stationer's line!"

"But why?" persisted La.r.s.en.

"Why? Because stationers sell pencils!"

"Y-yes, y-yes," said La.r.s.en with a drawl, "and so do 5 and 10-cent stores--and department stores--and drygood stores--and drug stores. Why not hardware stores? Do you know, Boss, I think hardware people sleepy on the switch. We sell razors, and then let the fellers go to the drug store to buy powder an' soap an' brushes. We got a few brushes, but seem scared to show 'em. What happens? The druggist sells 'em the powder and then they give us a devil"--again I put up my hand, I was trying to break La.r.s.en of swearing--"well, they give us a run for our money because they sell razors. I was up to New York last year, and I saw a drug store that had a picture frame department, and a line of toys, and bra.s.s and copper novelties--everything what we ought to sell and what was ours till we let these other stores swipe it from us."

Here La.r.s.en stopped for breath. This was a lot for him to say at one time, but he was "wound up" evidently for he resumed.

"Look at automobiles! If we fellers had been alive, we would not have let them specialty places crop up all over the place. Hardware stores oughter have the garage. We oughter have the profits of automobile accessories. Some fellers are getting alive to the job, but some still say we oughten ter b.u.t.t into somebody else's line!" He sneered as he said this.

"If owned a hardware store I would sell anything I could get a profit on. I'd put in a line of pastry if I thought I could get away with it!"