Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son Part 7

What I am sure of is that you have got the sulks too quick. If you knew all that you'll have to learn before you'll be a big, broad-gauged merchant, you might have something to be sulky about.

When you've posted yourself properly about the business you'll have taken a step in the right direction--you will be able to get your buyer's attention. All the other steps are those which lead you into his confidence.

Right here you will discover that you are in the fix of the young fellow who married his best girl and took her home to live with his mother. He found that the only way in which he could make one happy was by making the other mad, and that when he tried to make them both happy he only succeeded in making them both mad. Naturally, in the end, his wife divorced him and his mother disinherited him, and left her money to an orphan asylum, because, as she sensibly observed in the codicil, "orphans can not be ungrateful to their parents." But if the man had had a little tact he would have kept them in separate houses, and have let each one think that she was getting a trifle the best of it, without really giving it to either.

Tact is the knack of keeping quiet at the right time; of being so agreeable yourself that no one can be disagreeable to you; of making inferiority feel like equality. A tactful man can pull the stinger from a bee without getting stung.

Some men deal in facts, and call Bill Jones a liar. They get knocked down. Some men deal in subterfuges, and say that Bill Jones' father was a kettle-rendered liar, and that his mother's maiden name was Sapphira, and that any one who believes in the Darwinian theory should pity rather than blame their son. They get disliked. But your tactful man says that since Baron Munchausen no one has been so chuck full of bully reminiscences as Bill Jones; and when that comes back to Bill he is half tickled to death, because he doesn't know that the higher criticism has hurt the Baron's reputation. That man gets the trade.

There are two kinds of information: one to which everybody's ent.i.tled, and that is taught at school; and one which n.o.body ought to know except yourself, and that is what you think of Bill Jones. Of course, where you feel a man is not square you will be armed to meet him, but never on his own ground. Make him be honest with you if you can, but don't let him make you dishonest with him.

When you make a mistake, don't make the second one--keeping it to yourself. Own up. The time to sort out rotten eggs is at the nest. The deeper you hide them in the case the longer they stay in circulation, and the worse impression they make when they finally come to the breakfast-table. A mistake sprouts a lie when you cover it up. And one lie breeds enough distrust to choke out the prettiest crop of confidence that a fellow ever cultivated.

Of course, it's easy to have the confidence of the house, or the confidence of the buyer, but you've got to have both. The house pays you your salary, and the buyer helps you earn it. If you skin the buyer you will lose your trade; and if you play tag with the house you will lose your job. You've simply got to walk the fence straight, for if you step to either side you'll find a good deal of air under you.

Even after you are able to command the attention and the confidence of your buyers, you've got to be up and dressed all day to hold what trade is yours, and twisting and turning all night to wriggle into some of the other fellow's. When business is good, that is the time to force it, because it will come easy; and when it is bad, that is the time to force it, too, because we will need the orders.

Speaking of making trade naturally calls to my mind my old acquaintance, Herr Doctor Paracelsus Von Munsterberg, who, when I was a boy, came to our town "fresh from his healing triumphs at the Courts of Europe," as his handbills ran, "not to make money, but to confer on suffering mankind the priceless boon of health; to make the sick well, and the well better."

Munsterberg wasn't one of your common, coa.r.s.e, county-fair barkers. He was a pretty high-toned article. Had nice, curly black hair and didn't spare the bear's grease. Wore a silk hat and a Prince Albert coat all the time, except when he was orating, and then he shed the coat to get freer action with his arms. And when he talked he used the whole language, you bet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Herr Doctor Paracelsus Von Munsterberg was a pretty high-toned article._"]

Of course, the Priceless Boon was put up in bottles, labeled Munsterberg's Miraculous Medical Discovery, and, simply to introduce it, he was willing to sell the small size at fifty cents and the large one at a dollar. In addition to being a philanthropist the Doctor was quite a hand at card tricks, played the banjo, sung c.o.o.n songs and imitated a saw going through a board very creditably. All these accomplishments, and the story of how he cured the Emperor of Austria's sister with a single bottle, drew a crowd, but they didn't sell a drop of the Discovery. n.o.body in town was really sick, and those who thought they were had stocked up the week before with Quackenboss' Quick Quinine Kure from a fellow that made just as liberal promises as Munsterberg and sold the large size at fifty cents, including a handsome reproduction of an old master for the parlor.

Some fellows would just have cussed a little and have moved on to the next town, but Munsterberg made a beautiful speech, praising the climate, and saying that in his humble capacity he had been privileged to meet the strength and beauty of many Courts, but never had he been in any place where strength was stronger or beauty beautifuller than right here in Hoskins' Corners. He prayed with all his heart, though it was almost too much to hope, that the cholera, which was raging in Kentucky, would pa.s.s this Eden by; that the yellow fever, which was devastating Tennessee, would halt abashed before this stronghold of health, though he felt bound to add that it was a peculiarly malignant and persistent disease; that the smallpox, which was creeping southward from Canada, would smite the next town instead of ours, though he must own that it was no respecter of persons; that the diphtheria and scarlet-fever, which were sweeping over New England and crowding the graveyards, could be kept from crossing the Hudson, though they were great travelers and it was well to be prepared for the worst; that we one and all might providentially escape chills, headaches, coated tongue, pains in the back, loss of sleep and that tired feeling, but it was almost too much to ask, even of such a generous climate. In any event, he begged us to beware of worthless nostrums and base imitations. It made him sad to think that to-day we were here and that to-morrow we were running up an undertaker's bill, all for the lack of a small bottle of Medicine's greatest gift to Man.

I could see that this speech made a lot of women in the crowd powerful uneasy, and I heard the Widow Judkins say that she was afraid it was going to be "a mighty sickly winter," and she didn't know as it would do any harm to have some of that stuff in the house. But the Doctor didn't offer the Priceless Boon for sale again. He went right from his speech into an imitation of a dog, with a tin can tied to his tail, running down Main Street and crawling under Si Hooper's store at the far end of it--an imitation, he told us, to which the Sultan was powerful partial, "him being a cruel man and delighting in torturing the poor dumb beasts which the Lord has given us to love, honor and cherish."

He kept this sort of thing up till he judged it was our bedtime, and then he thanked us "one and all for our kind attention," and said that as his mission in life was to amuse as well as to heal, he would stay over till the next afternoon and give a special matinee for the little ones, whom he loved for the sake of his own golden-haired Willie, back there over the Rhine.

Naturally, all the women and children turned out the next afternoon, though the men had to be at work in the fields and the stores, and the Doctor just made us roar for half an hour. Then, while he was singing an uncommon funny song, Mrs. Brown's Johnny let out a howl.

The Doctor stopped short. "Bring the poor little sufferer here, Madam, and let me see if I can soothe his agony," says he.

Mrs. Brown was a good deal embarra.s.sed and more scared, but she pushed Johnny, yelling all the time, up to the Doctor, who began tapping him on the back and looking down his throat. Naturally, this made Johnny cry all the harder, and his mother was beginning to explain that she "reckoned she must have stepped on his sore toe," when the Doctor struck his forehead, cried "Eureka!", whipped out a bottle of the Priceless Boon, and forced a spoonful of it into Johnny's mouth. Then he gave the boy three slaps on the back and three taps on the stomach, ran one hand along his windpipe, and took a small b.u.t.ton-hook out of his mouth with the other.

Johnny made all his previous attempts at yelling sound like an imitation when he saw this, and he broke away and ran toward home. Then the Doctor stuck one hand in over the top of his vest, waved the b.u.t.ton-hook in the other, and cried: "Woman, your child is cured! Your b.u.t.ton-hook is found!"

Then he went on to explain that when baby swallowed safety-pins, or pennies, or fish-bones, or b.u.t.ton-hooks, or any little household articles, that all you had to do was to give it a spoonful of the Priceless Boon, tap it gently fore and aft, hold your hand under its mouth, and the little article would drop out like chocolate from a slot machine.

Every one was talking at once, now, and n.o.body had any time for Mrs.

Brown, who was trying to say something. Finally she got mad and followed Johnny home. Half an hour later the Doctor drove out of the Corners, leaving his stock of the Priceless Boon distributed--for the usual consideration--among all the mothers in town.

It was not until the next day that Mrs. Brown got a chance to explain that while the Boon might be all that the Doctor claimed for it, no one in her house had ever owned a b.u.t.ton-hook, because her old man wore jack-boots and she wore congress shoes, and little Johnny wore just plain feet.

I simply mention the Doctor in pa.s.sing, not as an example in morals, but in methods. Some salesmen think that selling is like eating--to satisfy an existing appet.i.te; but a good salesman is like a good cook--he can create an appet.i.te when the buyer isn't hungry.

I don't care how good old methods are, new ones are better, even if they're only just as good. That's not so Irish as it sounds. Doing the same thing in the same way year after year is like eating a quail a day for thirty days. Along toward the middle of the month a fellow begins to long for a broiled crow or a slice of cold dog.

Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM.

+----------------------------+ No. 13 +----------------------------+ From John Graham, at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago, to his son, Pierrepont, care of The Hoosier Grocery Co., Indianapolis, Indiana. Mr. Pierrepont's orders have been looking up, so the old man gives him a pat on the back--but not too hard a one. +----------------------------+

XIII

CHICAGO, May 10, 189-

_Dear Pierrepont:_ That order for a carload of Spotless Snow Leaf from old Shorter is the kind of back talk I like. We can stand a little more of the same sort of sa.s.sing. I have told the cashier that you will draw thirty a week after this, and I want you to have a nice suit of clothes made and send the bill to the old man. Get something that won't keep people guessing whether you follow the horses or do buck and wing dancing for a living. Your taste in clothes seems to be lasting longer than the rest of your college education. You looked like a young widow who had raised the second crop of daisies over the deceased when you were in here last week.

Of course, clothes don't make the man, but they make all of him except his hands and face during business hours, and that's a pretty considerable area of the human animal. A dirty shirt may hide a pure heart, but it seldom covers a clean skin. If you look as if you had slept in your clothes, most men will jump to the conclusion that you have, and you will never get to know them well enough to explain that your head is so full of n.o.ble thoughts that you haven't time to bother with the dandruff on your shoulders. And if you wear blue and white striped pants and a red necktie, you will find it difficult to get close enough to a deacon to be invited to say grace at his table, even if you never play for anything except coffee or beans.

Appearances are deceitful, I know, but so long as they are, there's nothing like having them deceive for us instead of against us. I've seen a ten-cent shave and a five-cent shine get a thousand-dollar job, and a cigarette and a pint of champagne knock the bottom out of a million-dollar pork corner. Four or five years ago little Jim Jackson had the bears in the provision pit hibernating and living on their own fat till one morning, the day after he had run the price of mess pork up to twenty dollars and nailed it there, some one saw him drinking a small bottle just before he went on 'Change, and told it round among the brokers on the floor. The bears thought Jim must have had bad news, to be bracing up at that time in the morning, so they perked up and everlastingly sold the mess pork market down through the bottom of the pit to solid earth. There wasn't even a grease spot left of that corner when they got through. As it happened, Jim hadn't had any bad news; he just took the drink because he felt pretty good, and things were coming his way.

But it isn't enough to be all right in this world; you've got to look all right as well, because two-thirds of success is making people think you are all right. So you have to be governed by general rules, even though you may be an exception. People have seen four and four make eight, and the young man and the small bottle make a d.a.m.ned fool so often that they are hard to convince that the combination can work out any other way. The Lord only allows so much fun for every man that He makes. Some get it going fishing most of the time and making money the rest; some get it making money most of the time and going fishing the rest. You can take your choice, but the two lines of business don't gee.

The more money, the less fish. The farther you go, the straighter you've got to walk.

I used to get a heap of solid comfort out of chewing tobacco. Picked up the habit in Missouri, and took to it like a Yankee to pie. At that time pretty much every one in those parts chewed, except the Elder and the women, and most of them snuffed. Seemed a nice, sociable habit, and I never thought anything special about it till I came North and your Ma began to tell me it was a vile relic of barbarism, meaning Missouri, I suppose. Then I confined operations to my office and took to fine cut instead of plug, as being tonier.

Well, one day, about ten years ago, when I was walking through the office, I noticed one of the boys on the mailing-desk, a mighty likely-looking youngster, sort of working his jaws as he wrote. I didn't stop to think, but somehow I was mad in a minute. Still, I didn't say a word--just stood and looked at him while he speeded up the way the boys will when they think the old man is nosing around to see whose salary he can raise next.

I stood over him for a matter of five minutes, and all the time he was pretending not to see me at all. I will say that he was a pretty game boy, for he never weakened for a second. But at last, seeing he was about to choke to death, I said, sharp and sudden--"Spit."

Well, sir, I thought it was a cloudburst. You can bet I was pretty hot, and I started in to curl up that young fellow to a crisp. But before I got out a word, something hit me all of a sudden, and I just went up to the boy and put my hand on his shoulder and said, "Let's swear off, son."

Naturally, he swore off--he was so blamed scared that he would have quit breathing if I had asked him to, I reckon. And I had to take my stock of fine cut and send it to the heathen.

I simply mention this little incident in pa.s.sing as an example of the fact that a man can't do what he pleases in this world, because the higher he climbs the plainer people can see him. Naturally, as the old man's son, you have a lot of fellows watching you and betting that you are no good. If you succeed they will say it was an accident; and if you fail they will say it was a cinch.

There are two unpardonable sins in this world--success and failure.

Those who succeed can't forgive a fellow for being a failure, and those who fail can't forgive him for being a success. If you do succeed, though, you will be too busy to bother very much about what the failures think.

I dwell a little on this matter of appearances because so few men are really thinking animals. Where one fellow reads a stranger's character in his face, a hundred read it in his get-up. We have shown a dozen breeds of dukes and droves of college presidents and doctors of divinity through the packing-house, and the workmen never noticed them except to throw livers at them when they got in their way. But when John L.

Sullivan went through the stock yards it just simply shut down the plant. The men quit the benches with a yell and lined up to cheer him.

You see, John looked his job, and you didn't have to explain to the men that he was the real thing in prize-fighters. Of course, when a fellow gets to the point where he is something in particular, he doesn't have to care because he doesn't look like anything special; but while a young fellow isn't anything in particular, it is a mighty valuable a.s.set if he looks like something special.

Just here I want to say that while it's all right for the other fellow to be influenced by appearances, it's all wrong for you to go on them.

Back up good looks by good character yourself, and make sure that the other fellow does the same. A suspicious man makes trouble for himself, but a cautious one saves it. Because there ain't any rotten apples in the top layer, it ain't always safe to bet that the whole barrel is sound.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_When John L. Sullivan went through the stock yards, it just simply shut down the plant._"]

A man doesn't snap up a horse just because he looks all right. As a usual thing that only makes him wonder what really is the matter that the other fellow wants to sell. So he leads the nag out into the middle of a ten-acre lot, where the light will strike him good and strong, and examines every hair of his hide, as if he expected to find it near-seal, or some other base imitation; and he squints under each hoof for the grand hailing sign of distress; and he peeks down his throat for dark secrets. If the horse pa.s.ses this degree the buyer drives him twenty or thirty miles, expecting him to turn out a roarer, or to find that he balks, or shies, or goes lame, or develops some other horse nonsense.