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Author: 
 
 Farrington 
 
 J 
 
 Frank 
 
 Title: 
 
 More talks by the old 
 storekeeper 
 
 Place: 
 
 Chicago 
 
 Date: 
 
 [1912] 
 
Oi<\s^7a?>\ -a 
 
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 Parrington, Frank, 1872- 
 
 More talks by the old storekeeper, by Frank Farring- 
 ton ... Chicago, 111., Byxbee publishing company [«1912] 
 250 p. illus. IS", ^tee 
 
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MORE TALKS BY THE 
 OLD STOREKEEPER 
 
 By FRANK FARRINGTON 
 
 Author of 
 
 *• Talks by the Old Storekeeper " 
 " Retail Advertising — Complete *' 
 "Store Management — Complete," Etc., Etc. 
 
 BYXBEE PUBLISHING CpMPANY 
 CHICAGO, .^» \5 l'^ :./ '. ILL. 
 
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 Copyright, 1912, by 
 BYXBEE PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 ,^ CONTENTS 
 
 FIRST TALK 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Those Mail Order Houses . 9 
 
 How they get the business and why they get it. The 
 home store advantages. How to keep trade at home. What 
 advertising to use. What one merchant said in his adver- 
 tising. Barlow's new, pretty girl clerk. 
 
 SECOND TALK 
 Something About Clerks 23 
 
 The girl clerk makes good. Value of a set of rules for 
 help. The Golden Rule. Nagging of clerks and by clerks. 
 Green clerks. Starting them right* Holding clerks' exam- 
 inations. About raising wages. 
 
 39-5-/313 
 
 J) 2 5'<h. S" 
 
 •V 
 
 • • »- 
 
 I t 
 
 • • • 
 
 < • 
 
 THIRD TALK 
 How Retail Advertising Pays 
 
 37 
 
 The first thing to learn. Sticking to it. All businesses 
 alike. What advertising to do and what not to do. Adver- 
 tising to enliven dull days. 
 
 FOURTH TALK 
 The Clothes You Wear 51 
 
 The new girl and the competitor's clerk. Clothes to fit 
 the occupation. What to wear at work. The well dressed 
 and the poorly dressed clerk. Effect of the example of 
 good clothes. Interesting the clerks in better dress. 
 
 FIFTH TALK 
 Handling the Money . . . . 
 
 66 
 
 Choosing a good cash system. Some disadvantages to be 
 avoided. Qualities needed. Stopping mistakes and forget- 
 fulness. A good credit system. Accuracy in making figures 
 on the business. Use of carbon systems. Cashiers. 
 
Contents 
 
 Contents 
 
 SIXTH TALK 
 
 PAGE 
 
 TWELFTH TALK 
 
 Special Newspaper Advertising ge 
 
 How to push a special line in the newspapers. Advertise- 
 ments that people will read. Testimonials. Selling men's 
 |oods to women for Christmas gifts. The opportunities of 
 
 SEVENTH TALK 
 Delivering the Goods 
 
 Barlow's new clerk is independent. The delivery of small 
 purchases. Telephone orders. Salesmanship and delivery. 
 The grouchy merchant. Orders that don't get delivered till 
 too late. Special sale taken to the customer. Automobile 
 
 lOI 
 
 delivery. 
 
 EIGHTH TALK 
 
 The Dealer's Best Help ji5 
 
 The big manufacturer's advertising and how to make it 
 count. Having the goods the people want. Where to learn 
 more about your business. The trade journals and what is 
 in them. How to make the trade journal pay you big divi- 
 dends. Filing ideas where they can be found. 
 
 131 
 
 NINTH TALK 
 The Travelling Man 
 
 The Old Storekeeper returns from a trip. Barlow turns 
 down a drummer. Why the travelling salesman should be 
 treated well. What he represents. What he knows that 
 will be of value to you. Barlow gets engaged. New store 
 m town. 
 
 TENTH TALK 
 A New Competitor Opens 145 
 
 Too much base ball for business. New merchant's hustling 
 methods. Getting the trade into a new store. The danger 
 of earlv closing. Stealing the other man's help. Lack of 
 cordiality. The solemn store. The value of cheerfulness. 
 Store papers. 
 
 ELEVENTH TALK 
 A Customer's Point of View igi 
 
 Barlow's over-confidence. Mistakes with clerks. What 
 makes a popular store. What a woman thinks about suc- 
 cessful merchandising. Prompt service. "No trouble to 
 show goods. How men like to buy. Reading the litera- 
 ture of the business. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 How TO Have Good Clerks 175 
 
 The " Enterprise Club." The right sort of a boss. The 
 ambitious clerk. Appreciation of help. Moral responsibil- 
 ity regarding them. Example some merchants set. Temper. 
 Mistakes. The easy boss. Health. Cigarettes. Profit shar- 
 Salesmanship. Barlow calls for help. 
 
 ing 
 
 THIRTEENTH TALK 
 
 Getting the Business Back 189 
 
 New store gets Barlow's trade. Old Storekeeper sends 
 Barlow on vacation. Development and operation of pre- 
 mium plans. What kinds of premiums to use. How to 
 handle them. How to interest the public. Trade associa- 
 tions and their value. Getting outside ideas. Barlow re- 
 turns. 
 
 FOURTEENTH TALK 
 Using the Windows 205 
 
 How to learn window dressing. Putting ideas into prac- 
 tice. Where to get plans. Making the window produce 
 sales. Other people's window dressing ideas. 
 
 FIFTEENTH TALK 
 Developing High Class Trade 219 
 
 Hunting up new markets and newer goods. Who buys 
 the best goods. How to make them buy. Handling the 
 finicky trade. The goods that draw the best trade. What 
 the monied customers like and what they will not allow. 
 Premiums and classy trade. 
 
 SIXTEENTH TALK 
 Self Selling Goods 23S 
 
 Starting the 5-10 and 25^ business. Who buy the bargain 
 goods. Where to show them. How to make them sell. 
 Keeping bargain stock from driving away the high class 
 trade. Some live leader plans. Something about show- 
 cards. How wives can help. Merchant's wives as business 
 promoters. Barlow and his wife. 
 
 «> 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 tt 
 
 Why don't you get out and get a little fresh air?' 
 
 See page 93. 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The first "Talks by the Old Storekeeper" 
 which appeared a little while ago in book form 
 met with so cordial a reception that I have felt 
 it a pleasure to write the second series. 
 
 It is scarcely possible for the last word ever 
 to be said on storekeeping and no matter how 
 much any man may know about merchandising 
 and store management and advertising, prac- 
 tically every other man in the business has dis- 
 covered some things that the first man missed. 
 
 The readers of these new " Talks " may not 
 agree with all the ideas that the book offers, but 
 even so, it will probably have the effect of set- 
 ting them to thinking in a way that will prove 
 independently profitable. Ideas that produce 
 ideas are worth noticing. 
 
 After the events narrated in the last chapter 
 of the original book of " Talks," it was some 
 weeks before Tobias Jenkins dropped into the 
 store to stay for any length of time and John 
 Barlow began to wonder whether he had not in 
 
 7 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 some way oflfended his old friend and predeces- 
 sor. This however proved not to be the case 
 as the old ways were soon resumed again with 
 the results to be told in the chapters of this col- 
 lection of " More Talks by the Old Storekeeper." 
 
 Frank Farrington. 
 
 8 
 
 FIRST TALK 
 
 THOSE MAIL ORDER HOUSES 
 
 The air was beginning to feel like fall and 
 occasional dead leaves blew along the sidewalks 
 one smoky afternoon as Tobias Jenkins came 
 out of Charley Morrison's drug store and stood 
 looking up at the yellow face of the sun. 
 
 " Dry, dry, dry. We can't stand much more 
 of this weather or the farmers will have to buy 
 bottled water for the stock," said he to himself. 
 " It's going to be pretty tough on the merchants 
 who have to carry the farmers on their books. 
 Guess I'll go in and see how John's getting along. 
 He ought to be getting ready for the fall trade 
 
 now. 
 
 9} 
 
 Walking slowly past the windows of Barlow's 
 store he entered the door and strolled back be- 
 tween the counters toward the office of the pro- 
 prietor who had a roll-top desk and a safe fenced 
 off for his private use. Tobias hesitated at the 
 ribbon case as he saw a brand new girl, a very 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 pretty and stylish looking girl, arranging the 
 goods there. 
 
 She was a stranger to him and he realized that 
 Barlow must have been importing help from 
 some larger place. The old man appreciated a 
 good looking girl and he knew to a fraction of 
 a cent the value of such attractiveness in a store 
 — if properly used. The girl looked up and 
 said, "Good afternoon " but Tobias simply said, 
 " Vm just a passenger " as he went on back to 
 the office. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Jenkins, I thought you had de- 
 serted me," said John. "Sit down," and he 
 shoved an arm chair toward the visitor. 
 
 " I've been staying away on purpose, John," 
 said the newcomer. " I thought maybe it would 
 be better if I didn't keep coming around and 
 handing out advice all the while. Free advice 
 is like free advertising, worth just about half 
 what it costs." 
 
 "Not in your case, Mr. Jenkins. Your ad- 
 vice is worth a lot of money to me, or at least 
 it would be if I would take a little more pains 
 to follow it. i can see now where I have lost 
 a good deal of business by thinking that I knew 
 more about it than you do. What do you think 
 of the outlook for rain ? This drouth is getting 
 to be a pretty serious thing with the farmers 
 
 10 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 and they aren't buying a thing they don't have 
 to have." 
 
 " I think it looks just as much like rain now 
 as it has any time in the last six weeks, and not 
 a bit more. It's going to be up to you to work 
 harder than ever this fall for what trade there 
 is so as to make up for what there isn't. You'll 
 have to get more of the other fellow's business 
 and all the merchants ought to get together and 
 try harder to bring business here that's going 
 to other towns around and to those Chicago mail 
 order houses." 
 
 " That's right," interrupted Barlow. " Those 
 cussed mail order houses are what are raising 
 the dickens. Every farmer around here has one 
 of their eight day catalogs and reads it oftener 
 than he does his Bible." 
 
 " Well, now, don't go up in the air about it, 
 John. I'm no great friend of the mail order 
 fellows that I know of. I don't buy my goods 
 that way and I don't believe anybody can make 
 any money doing it in the long run, but I can't 
 see but that those fellows are doing business in 
 a perfectly legitimate way. Of course you don't 
 like their competition and I don't blame you, but 
 it's fair, isn't it? They're getting trade because 
 they most everlastingly go after it. They're hus- 
 tlers after business. They don't spend any time 
 
 II 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 "Every farmer has one of their catalogs." 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 or energy sitting around kicking because the 
 country merchant is getting some of the trade 
 they want. No sir, they work overtime trying 
 to figure out ways of making people send money 
 to them instead of spending it at home." 
 
 " They do everybody they sell goods to," put 
 in Barlow indignantly. "Why, look here, I 
 know a man who just bought a suit of clothes 
 from a Chicago house and when they came, the 
 coat and pants didn't even match." 
 
 " Wouldn't they make it right ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course they said they'd make it right, 
 but what good would that do? The fellow 
 wanted the clothes to wear." 
 
 " Oh well, I don't see that that's a very good 
 argument in proof of the dishonesty of the mail 
 order house though it's an argument in favor 
 of buying where you can see what you're get- 
 ting. When you come to think of it, the advan- 
 tages are all in favor of the merchant who is 
 right on the spot and if he loses trade to a mer- 
 chant a thousand miles away, he really hasn't 
 anyone to blame but himself." 
 
 Barlow seemed rather put out because of the 
 older man's unsympathetic attitude but he re- 
 frained from the sacastic remark that was on the 
 end of his tongue, and said, 
 
 13 
 
 12 
 
 «V' 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " I don't believe, Mr. Jenkins, that when you 
 ran this store the mail order houses were making 
 the bid for trade that they are making now and 
 perhaps you didn't go up against it in the way 
 we have to nowadays." 
 
 "No, I didn't. You're right, but this mail 
 order competition doesn't involve any spick and 
 span new principle that I know of. Here's your 
 store right here in Hampton with the goods in 
 It and all the charges on them paid. A farmer 
 comes in and wants a pair of overalls and a box 
 of collars and a clothes line ; maybe a lot more 
 things. You can show him the goods. You 
 can turn them right over to him if he likes them 
 There isn't any freight for him to pay. He 
 doesn't have to wait for the stuff to come and 
 take a chance of its turning out to be different 
 from what he ordered or from what he thought 
 It was going to be. You can probably even sell 
 him the goods within a few cents of what he 
 would pay in Chicago for a grade no better and 
 very likely not quite as good. The advantage 
 for the farmer is all in buying from you. You 
 know a hundred reasons for that beside what 
 I've mentioned. Why does Mr. Farmer send to 
 Chicago at all ? " 
 
 " Because he's a natural born darned fool and 
 a cent looks bigger to him than a month of wait- 
 
 14 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 ing and a thousand chances of the goods being 
 [wrong." 
 
 " Not on your life ! " ejaculated Tobias. " The 
 farmer is no more a natural born darned fool 
 than you are. He's willing to pay a fair price 
 for what he buys. He's a business man nowa- 
 days and doesn't even look at affairs the way 
 he used to years ago. I've done business with 
 farmers ever since I've done business with any- 
 body and I know what I'm talking about. 
 They're the best customers I had when I ran 
 the store. They're the backbone of the country 
 to-day. They're the people who had money in 
 the last panic when nobody else had a cent. 
 They send to the mail order houses because the 
 [mail order houses keep asking them to send and 
 showing them what they have to sell and how- 
 much it is to cost. The mail order house tells 
 a good story. It describes its goods in the best 
 way that printer's ink will do it; with pictures 
 and word descriptions that make you want the 
 goods. I know for I get the catalogs as regu- 
 larly as they come out. I send for them be- 
 cause I want to see what's doing. You ought 
 to do the same. If you knew your goods as 
 well as the mail order man and described them 
 as well to your customers, you would sell more 
 of them. Every merchant ought to do all in 
 
 15 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 his power to keep posted on what his competi- 
 tors are doing and these mail order competitors, 
 according to your own story, are about your 
 hottest and most lively ones." 
 
 "Well, I don't see where all that helps me 
 any. I can't stop those houses from sending] 
 out their catalogs and keeping the farmers all: 
 stirred up, can I ? " 
 
 **Why, John, you're not so blind as all that, 
 are you? Can't you see any better way of get- 
 ting under your competitor's belt ? When Larry 
 Benjamin over there gets out some extra hot 
 advertising matter and springs a lot of bargains 
 in your line on the public, you don't try to figure 
 out how you can get him to stop his advertising,, 
 do you? Not by a jugful! You get busy on 
 your own advertising and try to go him one bet-| 
 ter. Well, that's the only way to meet these 
 other competitors. If it pays them, as far away 
 as they are, to advertise to your customers, it 
 sure ought to pay you right here on the spot to 
 do it. 
 
 " You don't need to follow along the tracks | 
 of the mail order advertisers. You needn't pay 
 any special attention to them unless you want 
 to, but you ought to be firing out advertising to 
 the farmers all the time. I say the farmers 
 especially because they are the class who buy the^ 
 
 i6 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 most goods from the mail order people. They 
 seem to respond to the advertising better — and 
 they would respond to your advertising better 
 too.'^ 
 
 "I've been advertising to the farmers all the 
 time since I've been in business and it hasn't 
 made me rich." 
 
 " It's paid you, hasn't it ? " 
 
 "Well, I've been doing a good business and 
 {getting more of it all the time, so I suppose that 
 I or something else must have helped matters 
 along." 
 
 "Of course. Your advertising all helps and 
 your business is growing all the time but you 
 might as well let it grow some faster. You 
 aren't like old Josey Johnson, are you? Won't 
 advertise because he's making a living out of his 
 grocery store without advertising. It's all right 
 to be satisfied w^ith things as they are, but a lit- 
 tle ambition is necessary if a man is going to 
 get in sight of the top." 
 
 " I can't get out a big catalog like those mail 
 
 order houses. I haven't the line and it wouldn't 
 pay." 
 
 " No, of course not. It wouldn't pay you to 
 get out a catalog of goods you haven't got and 
 it wouldn't pay you to get in a big stock of goods 
 just so you could catalog them. But what's to 
 
 17 
 

 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 hinder you from putting into your customer's 
 hands two or three or four times a year a cata- 
 log of the goods you do have? I'd include too 
 full instructions how to order them by mail if 
 anyone wants to do it that way. It would 
 pay you to do more of that kind of advertis- 
 mg. 
 
 " It would pay the printer better than it would 
 pay me," said Barlow rather sourly, " I don't 
 believe any retail store can buck this mail order 
 proposition and make money at it." 
 
 " He can if he will try and 111 just bet you 
 twenty-five dollars that if you will let me tell 
 you what to do, you can make your business 
 grow by following my advice. Here's a little 
 dodge a fellow in Illinois worked the other day. 
 He called a spade a spade and while I don't as 
 a rule believe in saying anything about your 
 competitor in advertisements, still this was so 
 clever that in a catalog ridden town it might be 
 pretty successful, especially as the point is well 
 made. I'll just read you the contents of the ad- 
 vertisement the merchant sent out to his mailing 
 list : 
 
 " * Our old friend, Montgomery Ward, of 
 Chicago, sent us a nice big book yesterday, but 
 as it came by freight and was left at the back 
 door, we had not the opportunity to personally 
 
 i8 
 
 to 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 thank him, and we now take this method of do- 
 ing so. It seems as how Montgomery keeps a 
 store down there, and this books tells how cheap 
 he sells things. The book is also full of pic- 
 tures of how a fellow would look dressed up in 
 some of Montgomery's bargains. For example, 
 we notice that he says he will sell an oiled Gal- 
 loway coat for $21.75. Now, we believe he is 
 honest in this, because we sell the same kind for 
 $20.00. Not much diflference in the price, but 
 Montgomery is queer in some ways; he wants 
 the money first. He says if you will send him 
 $1.65 he will send you a * pure wool ' undershirt 
 for it; that would be just like Montgomery — 
 he would do it you bet — the same shirt would 
 cost $1.50 here, pure, long wool, the ' Staley 
 Make,' at that. And then he says he sells work 
 shirts for thirty-six cents. Montgomery is a 
 little high here, too — we sell them for thirty- 
 five, cents. He thinks it's better though, to buy 
 the forty-three cent kind; of course, what he 
 really means is, it's better for Montgomery — 
 but he's so timid in saying so. Fleece lined un- 
 derwear, the kind we sell for twenty-nine cents, 
 Montgomery thinks are bargains at fifty cents. 
 Montgomery is all right, and we thank him for 
 the book. More new suits Saturday.' " 
 " I wouldn't advertise Montgomery Ward like 
 
 19 
 
I 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 1 
 
 ''How long have you been in the peach business f" 
 
 20 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 that/' said Barlow. " I don't believe in that 
 kind of advertising/' 
 
 "I didn't say I did, did I?" said Tobias. 
 " You didn't take up my bet and I'm not going to 
 give you any real advice — yes, I am too. I'll 
 tell you this much; if I were you I'd do as 
 Charley Morrison told the man to do who hired 
 out to cut his wood and then spent all his time 
 standing around telling how many cords he'd cut 
 in a day some other time and what a wonder he 
 used to be. Charley got tired of all talk and 
 no chop and told him to get busy and chop more 
 wood with the axe and less with his mouth. I 
 don't mean that you don't chop any wood. But 
 about this mail order competition, I'd either get 
 after the business in the right way or I'd stop 
 kicking about the other fellows getting it." 
 
 Barlow took the advice in good spirit and ad- 
 mitted the force of it. 
 
 After discussing the matter for a while longer 
 Tobias arose to go, saying as he got up, 
 
 " By the way, John, how long have you been 
 in the peach business ? " 
 
 Barlow looked blank for an instant until he 
 saw the other man's glance travel toward the 
 girl at the ribbon case. Then he turned red and 
 sort of stammered, 
 
 "Why — er — that is, she is a saleslady I 
 
 21 
 
I 
 
 g 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 hired when I was in New York the other day. 
 Her name is Dolly Dingle. They told me that 
 she could sell more goods than any other clerk 
 in the store where she'd been working. She 
 wanted to get out of the city on account of her 
 mother's health, and I engaged her. Don't you 
 think she'll make good ? " 
 
 Tobias said nothing for a moment as he 
 walked out of the office and just at the corner 
 of the railing he turned and remarked in a dry 
 
 tone, 
 
 " Yes, John, I'm inclined to think she'll make 
 good. Probably it won't take her long either." 
 
 22 
 
 SECOND TALK 
 
 SOMETHING ABOUT CLERKS 
 
 For several days after Mr. Jenkins' last visit 
 to Barlow's store he made it a point to drop in 
 once or twice a day just to buy some little thing 
 or other and get a line on how the new girl was 
 
 getting on. 
 
 To tell the truth, he was afraid that she was 
 almost too pretty and stylish to be a success in 
 a store in a small town. In his mind he saw all 
 sorts of unfortunate complications arising. He 
 even told his wife that he never heard of a girl 
 named Dolly amounting to anything as a worker 
 and he didn't believe she would. 
 
 The first time or two that he went into the 
 store Barlow was not there and one or two of 
 the boys who should have been at work were 
 standing around Dolly Dingle jollying her. To- 
 bias noted that the girl herself kept busy and 
 seemed not to pay very much attention to the 
 boys, but nevertheless it seemed that she was al- 
 ready a disturbing element. 
 
 23 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 Then one day Mr. Jenkins went down town 
 on an errand for his wife who wanted a piece 
 of ribbon matched. He walked up to Miss 
 Dingle's counter which was, strange to say, de- 
 serted by the men clerks just then, and showed 
 her his sample and told what he wanted. 
 
 Well, he had expected to be treated in a sort 
 of semi-snippy manner and perhaps made to feel 
 that he had no business buying ribbon and tak- 
 ing up her valuable time. He had had such ex- 
 periences before with salesladies. 
 
 He was agreeably surprised by the manner in 
 which the girl greeted him. She was pleasant 
 without overdoing it and she seemed to take a 
 pleasure in making him feel at ease in buying 
 goods that were a little out of the line of a man's 
 ordinary purchases — and she was not chewing 
 gum! 
 
 She took pains to show him all the different 
 grades of goods and to explain their differences, 
 and evidently she did not know that she was 
 waiting upon an old merchant. In a word she 
 did everything that a good clerk could do to 
 please a customer. 
 
 Tobias went home with the ribbon and was so 
 enthusiastic over " Barlow's Dolly Dingle," as 
 he called her, that his wife took him to task for 
 
 24 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 it and continued to tease him for days after- 
 ward. 
 
 On his next call at the store Barlow himself 
 was visiting with the attractive saleslady and 
 when he saw Tobias coming in he looked up and 
 turned just red enough so that the girl noticed 
 it and elevated her head and turned her back 
 to the men as she went about some work. 
 
 " I want to write a letter, John. Can I use 
 your desk a few minutes ? " Mr. Jenkins asked 
 as he walked toward the office. 
 
 John assented cordially and followed along 
 back and sat down in the old arm chair usually 
 occupied by the old Storekeeper. While the 
 other wrote, Barlow lighted a cigar and puffed 
 away in silence, turning the leaves of a trade 
 journal slowly. 
 
 At last the letter was finished and sealed into 
 an envelope and Tobias swung around and said, 
 
 " How does the new clerk get on, John ? " 
 
 John looked at his friend rather curiously out 
 of the corner of his eyes but seeing no disposi- 
 tion to joke, he answered, 
 
 " Fine. I think she is all that was claimed for 
 her. She knows her stock already and she sure 
 is a wonder at showing goods." 
 
 " She waited on me a day or so ago," said 
 
 25 
 
I 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 Tobias, " and I guess you're right. If she treats 
 everybody as well as she did me, she will make 
 customers for you right along. V\l admit I was 
 a little afraid she would be too much devoted to 
 the ways of the city trade to be of great value 
 here where most of your trade is country people. 
 She must be possessed of some tact. Tact is 
 the one thing a good clerk has to have. Good 
 salesmanship is to be able to please customers, 
 and without tact it can't be done. 
 
 " If this girl fails to make money for you it 
 will be your own fault. And the great danger 
 is that she'll be spoiled by the men around the 
 store and I don't except anybody when I say 
 that. A mixed lot of clerks is all right and if 
 handled right it makes a fine force, but if it isn't 
 handled right there will be too much lovey dovey 
 business and the men will be hanging over the 
 counters talking to the girls and that will mean 
 that the girls can't work if they want to and the 
 men won't want to and the customers will find it 
 lonesome waiting until conversations about ^ last 
 night ' are finished. 
 
 " The way to have your clerks right is to start 
 'em right. It's a good deal easier to lay down 
 the rules and get them all clear in the clerk's 
 mind right at first than it is to have to be cor- 
 recting him every day afterward. And there are 
 
 26 
 
 (■4 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 a good many things that you can tell him at first 
 without hurting his feelings, that maybe would 
 seem pretty personal when they apply to faults 
 that he proves to possess. 
 
 " I believe it's a good plan for every store- 
 keeper to work out a set of rules that he finds 
 will fit his store and keep them posted up where 
 all his clerks will see them and read them. In 
 this way he can keep reminding them of some 
 of the points that he hates to be calling attention 
 to every day. A man doesn't like to nag his 
 clerks any more than they like to be nagged, but 
 when they stick to the same old faults week after 
 week, he can't let 'em go on without doing them 
 and his business harm." 
 
 *' That's so," assented Barlow. " Nagging 
 certainly spoils the disposition of the nagger and 
 the naggee. I've been there." 
 
 " The nagging isn't always done by the boss 
 either," continued Tobias. " Some clerks seem 
 to just delight in nagging their employers. They 
 don't do it perhaps in the way that nagging is 
 usually done, but they keep making the same mis- 
 take time after time, or they keep asking the 
 same old questions about stock until the boss 
 gets frazzled nerves answering them. Once 
 ought to be enough for anybody to tell anybody 
 else a simple fact. An ordinary brain ought to 
 
 27 
 
I 
 
 1 1 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 grasp an ordinary order the first time it's told. 
 The average clerk doesn't realize that he is own- 
 ing up to a weak mind when he forgets and for- 
 gets and forgets until patience ceases to be a 
 virtue. 
 
 " I've broken in a good many new clerks in my 
 time and I've learned a thing or two in doing 
 it. A clerk is the same kind of a fellow his boss 
 is, or was. Human nature doesn't vary a whole 
 lot whether it's a clerk or an employer. I 
 can remember all about when I was a clerk and 
 I have seen a good many storekeepers who either 
 never were clerks or else couldn't remember any- 
 thing about how it seemed. They seem to plumb 
 forget all about how they felt when they were 
 working for small wages. 
 
 "The Golden Rule is the only rule for any 
 kind of business and for any part of the manage- 
 ment of the business. When a man gets to where 
 he can't treat his clerks and his customers in the 
 way he'd like them to treat him, he'd better pull 
 in his sign. 
 
 " I always knew what kind of things my clerks 
 wanted to do to have a good time and I could 
 appreciate how they felt about such things be- 
 cause I was always pretty fond of a good time 
 myself. That made me willing to put myself 
 out sometimes to accommodate the boys and that 
 
 28 
 
 m 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 in turn made them always ready to accommodate 
 me. I never had a clerk who would get sore 
 at having to work over-time or at not getting 
 out when he asked to go. In the first place, it 
 didn't often happen that I would have to refuse 
 a man permission to get off. If I saw some- 
 thing coming that some of the boys would want 
 to take in, I tried to arrange it to suit all hands 
 as far as possible without waiting to be asked. 
 
 "The merchant who doesn't give anything 
 more to his clerks than they insist on having will 
 get out of them just about as much work as he 
 insists upon their doing. Some men who go on 
 the plan of ' Nothing for nothing and darned lit- 
 tle for a dollar' may be able to sell goods that 
 way and hang on to some trade, but they won't 
 very long hang onto any clerks who are any 
 good and who can get anything else to do. 
 
 " It's pretty hard for the boss to realize that 
 a new clerk doesn't know anything about the 
 business. A fellow comes into the store who 
 seems to be a nice young chap and has an ordi- 
 nary amount of intelligence and the boss maybe 
 has known him off and on for years. Well, this 
 chap has never worked in a store before and 
 doesn't even know how to make change and do 
 it right. He begins it at the wrong end and he 
 does pretty nearly everything wrong end first. 
 
 29 
 
 % > 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 i t 
 
 I !' 
 
 "/ tried to arrange it to suit all hands." 
 
 30 
 
 I i 
 
 1 
 I ii 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " It's aggravating ; no doubt about it. Sales 
 are lost and customers are disgruntled and the 
 cash is short and all sorts of accidents happen. 
 If they all happened at once the boss would go 
 crazy, but that's the compensating thing about 
 life anyway, troubles come only a day at a time, 
 and that's plenty as a rule. 
 
 " The new clerk is generally trying his best 
 and it's like the sign in that wild west * Beer gar- 
 den ' that reads, ' Don't shoot the pianist, he's 
 doing his best/ The right kind of a boss re- 
 members that he was once a greenhorn himself 
 and he thinks of the time when he didn't know a 
 sales slip from a government bond. He uses a 
 little patience, and the clerk comes out all right. 
 After all patience is all that's necessary with 
 green clerks. They'll learn fast enough if they 
 have a chance. They don't like it any better 
 than the boss does to have customers come in 
 and make fools of them. 
 
 " Why, a clerk I had once made a mistake he 
 didn't get over blushing about for a week. A 
 woman came in and asked for a pad. They wore 
 hip pads a good deal in those days — maybe 
 they do yet for all I know — and John thought 
 of those first. He got some out and laid them 
 down before the customer and she very coldly 
 informed him that she wished a writing tab- 
 
 31 
 
 « 
 
 ! 
 
 ( 
 
 i 
 
i 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 let, not one of those 'trumpery things.' I be- 
 lieve that's what she called them." 
 
 Barlow laughed a little over this and added 
 that it reminded him of the man who came into 
 Morrison's drug store a few days before and 
 wanted to get a medicine dropper. 
 
 " He was an intelligent looking chap," said 
 Barlow, "but he was as ignorant as your clerk. 
 He asked for a * drooper.* " 
 
 " Yes," said Tobias, " the clerks aren't always 
 to blame for the mistakes that are made. When 
 you see the way that people ask for things and 
 the way they mix up the names of goods, it's 
 funny there aren't more mistakes made. 
 
 " I always used to tell my clerks to be patient 
 with customers who asked for things they'd 
 never heard of. Never give up, I'd tell them, 
 until you have found out what the customer 
 really wants. Don't turn anybody off with a 
 careless ' We haven't got it,' just because you 
 don't know what they're driving at. 
 
 " When one clerk didn't know what the cus- 
 tomer meant, I'd have him say ' I'm not sure 
 whether we have that or not, I'll see.' Then 
 he'd come and tell me or a more experienced 
 clerk that he couldn't make out what his cus- 
 tomer wanted and that clerk would come along 
 and say, * Is anyone waiting upon you ? Yes, 
 
 32 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 what was it you wanted? ' etc. It's easy enough 
 to give the other clerks a chance and two heads 
 are better than one any old day. And no clerk 
 has any business to laugh at the mistakes of the 
 customers. 
 
 " The Irish woman who came into Morrison's 
 one day when I was in there and asked for a 
 comb had just as good money as anyone. 
 ' Give me a comb,' said she. * Do you want a 
 fine tooth comb ? ' asked Charley. ' No, I want 
 it for me hair,' said she. Charley never turned 
 a hair but handed out what she wanted and 
 laughed after she'd gone out. 
 
 " I used to have a little scheme that helped to 
 make good clerks and it pleased the clerks too. 
 I never raised a clerk's pay until he had been 
 m the store a year. At the end of the year 
 I got up a little examination for him to try. 
 It was a number of questions about handling cus- 
 tomers and about all kinds of work he had to 
 do. The questions were laid out with a view 
 to TOvering the weak points that he showed. 
 • " I told him that with a year of experience 
 he ought to be worth more money than he was 
 at first and that I was willing to give him more 
 If he was worth it. I told him that of course 
 I had my own opinion in the matter but that I 
 wanted him to try a little examination and if 
 
 33 
 
 \ 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 everything was satisfactory he would get a 
 raise. Of course if he was a poor clerk and 
 wasn't worth a raise I let him go without any 
 further fuss because a clerk who hasn't im- 
 proved enough in a year to be worth a raise 
 isn't very blamed valuable to the store. 
 
 " I never did believe in making a clerk ask for 
 every raise he got and then giving it to him 
 only when he threatened to leave if I didn't. A 
 fellow appreciates a raise in pay more when it 
 comes without being asked for, and if the boss 
 only gives a raise when it's demanded, his clerks 
 are likely to get an idea that asking for it is 
 what gets it and they will all be asking every 
 
 pay day. 
 
 " Another thing I found out about my help, 
 and that was that while there might be an ap- 
 parent limit to what I could aflford to pay a 
 man, there never was any actual limit. I never 
 had a clerk, no matter what I paid him, to whom 
 I wouldn't pay more if he could keep making 
 himself ■ worth more money. The clerk who 
 gets to be high man may think he has reached 
 the limit of salary in his present position, but 
 let him show that he could increase his money 
 making power and he would get a raise in 
 
 salary. 
 
 "Talking about green clerks, and by that 1 
 
 34 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 mean clerks that haven't ever clerked it any- 
 where, I'm on their side. For quite a while 
 they're like fish out of water. Even the fellow 
 who is just a natural born salesman takes some- 
 time to get his bearing and feel at home in a 
 store. It looks easy to go behind the counter 
 and hand out the goods and put the money in 
 the money drawer, but I tell you many a fel- 
 low has found that he couldn't do it right, even 
 after he had been shown how. It's more than 
 ' one of these simple stunts that are easy for any- 
 one after they are explained. 
 
 "You've got a pretty good force here now 
 John, haven't you ? Who's the good looking fel- 
 low that seems to hang around Dolly Dingle a 
 good deal? I notice they always go to dinner 
 at the same time." 
 
 " Oh, that's Jerry Barnard. You know Jerry 
 Miss Dingle won't find him very entertaining." 
 
 Tobias said nothing at this but it is safe to 
 say that he made a mental reservation. Barlow 
 was a little conceited when it came to the girl 
 question and he evidently thought that he was 
 the only one in the store who could suitably 
 entertain Dolly Dingle. 
 
 What Dolly's thoughts in the matter were was 
 not to be found out easily for girls have a way of 
 keepmg certain thoughts to themselves in spite 
 
 35 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 of their general reputation for never keeping 
 
 a secret. 
 
 Tobias noticed that Barlow followed him out 
 as far as the ribbon counter where he stopped 
 with the pretty salesgirl and apparently took up 
 his conversation right where he had left oflF to 
 go back to the office with his visitor. This lit- 
 tle incident had a tendency to make the Old 
 Storekeeper feel that perhaps his visit had been 
 an interruption and he thought it very likely that 
 he might not come in again for some time. 
 
 » 
 
 36 
 
 THIRD TALK 
 
 HOW RETAIL ADVERTISING PAYS 
 
 Henry Foss ran the only real tobacco store in 
 Hampton and while he made money and lived 
 comfortably he felt that there was no reason 
 why he should not riiake more money. He knew 
 that there was more business he might have if 
 he could devise some way of getting it. 
 
 He thought over the advertising ideas that 
 came to his mind but he had never done much 
 advertising and he felt a little doubtful of its 
 value to him. He was in the same position as 
 most merchants are who have not given adver- 
 tising a trial. He thought his business was dif- 
 ferent from everybody else's and that while the 
 grocer and the druggist and the dry goods mer- 
 chant might make it pay well to advertise he 
 doubted if he could. 
 
 At last he decided to ask Tobias Jenkins what 
 he thought about it. He called the Old Store- 
 keeper in one day as he was passing and giving 
 him a comfortable chair and a good cigar he told 
 
 Z7 
 
 i 
 
i 
 
 I 
 
 :.1 
 * 
 
 «" 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 him he wanted his opinion about advertising his 
 business. 
 
 "Do you want to know what I think about 
 your doing some advertising, Henry?" asked 
 
 Tobias. 
 
 " Yes sir, I want your advice about it." 
 
 " Well, ril tell you what I think but I give you 
 the privilege of doing just as you've a mind to 
 about it because I know that my advice doesn't 
 get followed very often and you won't need to 
 make any apologies for not following it. 
 
 " There isn't a shadow of doubt in my mind 
 that you can make your business grow just as 
 sure by advertising as you could if you were 
 selling dry goods. Anything that people want 
 to buy can be sold with good advertising. All 
 that advertising is is making people want the 
 goods and showing them where they can buy 
 them. A lot of people want your kind of goods 
 already but are buying them here and there 
 wherever it happens because they don't know 
 that they can buy them to any better advantage 
 from you than anywhere else. 
 
 "The same rules that apply to any kind of 
 retail advertising apply to yours and I'm going 
 to give you a little information along that line 
 and let vou think on it a little and then per- 
 
 38 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 haps some other day I'll come in and be more ex- 
 plicit. I don't want to tell you so much at one 
 time that you won't want to ever see me again. 
 
 " One of the first things you want to under- 
 stand about advertising your business is that 
 there's no use in advertising a little now and 
 then. These little spurts of advertising that 
 some fellows pull off don't do much except put 
 their money in circulation. You know how it is 
 when you start out to row a boat up the river 
 against a pretty good current? Well, getting 
 business by advertising isn't so very different 
 from that. You can set out and row like Sam 
 Hill for a few minutes and shoot along pretty 
 good and then you stop and rest and back you 
 go to where you started from and if you don't 
 get busy pretty quick you go back down stream 
 below where you started. Then you get at the 
 oars and pull away for a little while again and 
 get about as far as you did the first time and 
 have to rest and float back down once more, 
 and as long as you keep at it that way you'll 
 just put in your time going up and down right 
 in front of your own dock maybe. If you'd 
 started out kind of easy when you first got into 
 the boat and kept a steady pulling just hard 
 enough so that it kept you moving up stream 
 
 39 
 
 1^! 
 
 ^ • 
 
 t 
 

 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 and not hard enough so that you had to stop 
 and rest, then you would have been away up and 
 around the bend of the river by now. 
 
 " Well, that's the way advertising works. 
 You've got to keep grinding away at it steady 
 as a clock. When you think you have the busi- 
 ness coming your way and begin to economize 
 on your advertising bills, then you begin to float 
 back down again. 
 
 " No end of merchants start in good and strong 
 and stop for all kinds of reasons. Some get 
 cold feet and think their advertising bills are too 
 big and because nobody is coming in and saying 
 * I came to buy this because I saw your adver- 
 tisement," they don't see that the advertising is 
 paying them. Some are just naturally quitters 
 and can't keep at anything long enough to suc- 
 ceed. And some don't know how to advertise. 
 It doesn't make but mighty little difference why 
 a man quits as long as he does quit. 
 
 " In the first place advertising doesn't very 
 often produce direct, right away results that are 
 big enough to pay for it. I never in my life 
 ran a newspaper advertisement that I got enough 
 sales from that I knew came from it to pay 
 for it. But I never did spend so much money 
 on a year's advertising that I couldn't see where 
 the business had grown more than enough to 
 
 40 
 
 a 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 pay the extra advertising bill out of the extra 
 profits. 
 
 " If you go to advertising you might as well 
 make up your mind that you won't have enough 
 people come in and say * I'll take a box of those 
 Royal King cigars you advertised the other day ' 
 to pay for the advertisement. They won't come. 
 
 " But if the advertising is any good it will 
 bring business and you will be able to see the 
 difference from month to month — after you've 
 been at it long enough to begin to make an im- 
 pression on people. There will be a gain that 
 you can't lay to anything unless it is the adver- 
 tising. You can't see the hands of the watch 
 move but look at them now and then again ten 
 minutes from now ! 
 
 " Good, classy advertising of the steady, never 
 let up sort has got to win. It isn't the fisher- 
 man that goes thrashing along and fishes the 
 whole length of the stream in an afternoon that 
 gets the most fish. Not by a jugful! It's the 
 quiet chap that finds a likely hole and camps 
 right out beside it and stays till he gets his fish. 
 And more than this, the careful fisherman doesn't 
 get discouraged because Mister Fish doesn't 
 snap the hook right off on the first cast. No 
 sir. He tries his bait and he tries his flies and 
 he changes his position and his tackle until he 
 
 41 
 
 . i 
 
 't 
 
 t 
 
 '•« 
 
 ^ 
 
Pi 
 
 
 r i 
 
 8 
 
 it 
 
 li". 
 I* 
 
 It 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 hits it right. If the business doesn't respond to 
 the advertising, change the advertising. Don't 
 lay it to the people if your bait doesn't tempt 
 them. They've got a right to want the kind of 
 cigars or the kind of tobacco that they want. 
 No use getting sore because they prefer some 
 kind you haven't got. Get it. 
 
 *' One thing is sure. When your business be- 
 gins to get sick and need advertising, see that it 
 has it and don't stop short of getting the best 
 you can afford. When you get a toothache don't 
 you go to the dentist and don't you tell him 
 ' Go ahead. Doc. Get her out and do it quick ! ' 
 No haggling over the price then. 
 
 " It's the same with your business when it 
 gets sick. Dicker all you want to after you get 
 it on its feet, if that's your way, but for heaven's 
 sake until then, give it the best doctor and the 
 best medicine you can find. 
 
 " The fact that you called me in here and 
 asked me what I think about your advertising 
 shows that you've got an idea it would pay. 
 You're probably willing to try it, but you want 
 to be willing to try it a good while. I've known 
 men who advertised a week, others that adver- 
 tised a month and some who advertised six 
 months and got discouraged in spite of the fact 
 that business was getting better. You aren't 
 
 42 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 that kind of a chap I know because I've seen 
 you sticking here when business was mighty 
 slow coming and when I didn't see how you 
 could be making it pay. But you've stayed till 
 it does pay and that shows you aren't afraid to 
 work hard and take a chance. I don't mean that 
 it's like taking a chance to advertise. It isn't 
 like buying a ticket in a lottery and waiting to 
 see if you've happened to draw a prize. It's 
 like buying a bond or a mortgage and then wait- 
 ing for the interest to come due. Advertising 
 is an investment. If it wasn't, do you suppose 
 you'd see all those pages in the magazines full of 
 advertisements? Different? Not a bit. The 
 advertisers in those magazines are sticking right 
 there and hollering at you for business every 
 time just the same as you've got to stick in your 
 newspaper and holler at folks to come and buy 
 from you. People won't hear you if you stop 
 hollering and a good many won't hear you till 
 you've hollered quite a good many times. Folks 
 are amazingly deaf when you're talking to 'em 
 about spending their money. 
 
 " You perhaps don't know much about how 
 to advertise. I don't believe you've ever had any 
 experience in doing it. Well, you can't expect 
 that you can pick it up like picking up a match 
 to light a cigar. 
 
 43 
 
 \7 !l' 
 
 if 
 
H 
 
 
 f I 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " People don't pick up plumbing, or cigar mak- 
 ing or watch making that way. I don't mean to 
 say that for you to learn to write your own ad- 
 vertisements would be as hard as for you to 
 learn either of those other jobs. But all the 
 same writing advertising isn't the cinch a lot of 
 people think it. If you find when you come to 
 try it that you can't write good stuff, you'd bet- 
 ter get somebody who can to write it for you 
 and pay 'em for the work — for a while anyway 
 until you get the hang of it from watching them 
 do it. 
 
 " Of course the way to learn to advertise is 
 to study advertising just as that's the way to 
 learn anything. And the fellows who know the 
 most about that or anything else are the fellows 
 who study it the most. It's practice that makes 
 perfect. The fellow who keeps working at ad- 
 vertisement writing keeps learning something all 
 the time, especially if he keeps studying the ad- 
 vertising of other fellows he knows have made 
 a success of it. 
 
 " Why, when I started in advertising my store, 
 I used to take a newspaper from the city just to 
 study the ads in it and I'd clip out all the good 
 advertisements I saw and write some for myself 
 almost like them, just changing the reading 
 enough to make it fit my store and my goods. I 
 
 44 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 found after I'd been copying other fellows' ad- 
 vertisements that way for a while that I could 
 sit down and write off a pretty good imitation of 
 their ads myself. 
 
 " Of course a fellow's got to begin at the be- 
 ginning to learn advertising or arithmetic or any- 
 thing. He ought to know something about type. 
 You ought to go right to the printer who's going 
 to print your advertising and tell him how much 
 space you can afford to use and get him to give 
 you a sample sheet or paper with the names writ- 
 ten on opposite the kinds of type he's got in his 
 shop. Then you can look them over and pick 
 out the kind you think will look the best and 
 most attractive in your space and use it right 
 along all the time. You want a type that will 
 stand out and make people take notice and you 
 want one that will not be like those in the sur- 
 rounding ads. The printer will tell you anything 
 you want to know along that line. He'll prob- 
 ably think he knows a good deal more about it 
 than you do and he may laugh at the sugges- 
 tions you make to him, but when you get a good 
 idea from somewhere else, you use it and let 
 the printer laugh if he wants to. 
 
 " The policy of a store is pretty important and 
 I'd advise you to advertise your policy. You 
 want satisfied customers and the way to make 
 
 45 
 
 I 
 
 ' 
 
 It 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 them satisfied is to sell them good goods and 
 when they think the goods aren't all that they 
 ought to be, to give them back their money. 
 
 " It's all right to do business that way and just 
 doing it will make friends and business for the 
 store, but to advertise it will make more busi- 
 ness. It will bring in people who haven't had 
 satisfaction in other stores. When a man who 
 has just made some unsatisfactory purchases at 
 your competitor's store sees your advertisement 
 saying, ' We want satisfied customers. If you 
 buy anything from us that does not turn out 
 just as we said it would, we are willing to give 
 you back your money if you will ask for it,' then 
 that fellow is pretty likely to be influenced by the 
 statement and you will see him drop in and buy 
 something and he'll keep on coming as long as 
 everything is all right. As like as not he'll have 
 a chip on his shoulder and be waiting for a 
 chance to see whether you make good on your 
 promise or not. Of course you don't want to 
 advertise anything of that sort unless you are 
 prepared to do as you agree. 
 
 " Let me tell you about one kind of advertis- 
 ing you never ought to do. That's this negative 
 sort that tells the people the things you don't 
 do. Haven't you seen lots of ads that read 
 * We don't sell trust goods ' or we ' don't carry 
 
 46 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 anything but the best so-and-so'? Well, the 
 moral is that your customers, some of them want 
 cheap goods or trust brands and you are go- 
 ing out of your way to tell them you don't carry 
 what they want to buy. There may be some 
 folks who will like a store better if it does not 
 handle a trust article. If you have such cus- 
 tomers, whisper the information to them if you 
 think they need it, but don't hand it out to the 
 general public in a way that will get you in 
 bad with somebody. 
 
 '' Remember one thing and that is that you've 
 got to tell the truth in your advertising, even 
 more than you have to tell it behind the counter. 
 When you lie to a man once in your advertising, 
 you make him doubt every advertisement you 
 put before him afterwards. A store has got 
 to have the confidence of the people no matter 
 what it sells. And if the advertising is to bring 
 in any business that advertising must have the 
 confidence of the people too. When you tell 
 the reader of your advertisement that you are 
 offering a certain article at a price that is a bar- 
 gain, it's up to you to make it a bargain. When 
 you say ' Sterling ' see that it is sterling. 
 
 *' The best advertising for you to do unless you 
 are the little dealer in the big city, is local news- 
 paper advertising. You can buy a space in our 
 
 47 
 
 
 
i! 
 
 I 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 Hampton paper, maybe five inches double col- 
 umn, and it will very likely cost you a dollar an 
 issue and it will reach some 4,000 readers. 
 You can't get to 4,000 people in any other way 
 for a dollar. Of course you are paying for some 
 waste circulation because some subscribers are 
 too far away to trade with you, but even at that, 
 you are getting to your possible customers the 
 cheapest way. 
 
 " The kind of advertisements I like best to 
 read are the ones that talk right to me instead 
 of kind o' beating about the bush. I like good 
 straight facts and figures that tell me what I 
 want to know about what I want to buy. No 
 use in filling an ad up with a lot of fancy talk 
 any more than there's any use in filling it up 
 with a lot of fancy figures and printer's doodads. 
 When people are thinking of spending their 
 money they are thinking hard and close to the 
 main point. These Fourth of July oration kinds 
 of advertisments don't get me coming to a store. 
 
 "Your advertising ought to tell people about 
 the new things, the things they are going to buy 
 soon, instead of about the things they bought 
 last week. I mean by that that the advertising 
 ought not to trail along behind the demand. For 
 instance, a big newspaper campaign or magazine 
 campaign is opened up by the manufacturer of 
 
 48 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 some brand that you take on. You want to be 
 telling your customers that you have the goods 
 and getting them interested before they begin 
 asking for them instead of after the demand 
 begins. In this way you get them to come to 
 you the first time. Then they keep coming. 
 
 "You want to make your advertising bring 
 in business for the dull days and if you are 
 going to offer some pretty good specials it's a 
 mighty good plan to use 'em to brace up the 
 days that wouldn't pay expenses if you didn't 
 start something. Why, in the general merchan- 
 dise business it used to be that there were one 
 or two days in the week when nobody ever 
 thought of coming in to buy anything and there 
 were about four months in the year when busi- 
 ness stood still and went fast asleep. That's all 
 changed now. There's business every day and 
 business every month and advertising is what 
 did the trick. There's nothing like it to start 
 something. 
 
 "Well, I've got to go in and bother Barlow 
 a little while now and see how his affairs are 
 coming on. I'll be in and see you again when I 
 find out how you've stood this dose. So long." 
 
 ; 
 
 49 
 
 k ^ 
 

 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 I 
 
 "There used to be months when business stood and went 
 
 fast asleep." 
 
 so 
 
 FOURTH TALK 
 
 THE CLOTHES YOU WEAR 
 
 Hampton was not a large town and you know 
 how it is in these country towns when a new 
 girl arrives, whether she is to work in one of 
 the stores or visit the head of the village Smart 
 Set. All the boys at once begin to try to get 
 her to notice them. 
 
 Dolly Dingle was a marvel at minding her 
 own business. She was in every respect a 
 " peach " and the young fellow who wanted her 
 to go anywhere with him had to come right up 
 to the mark and ask her in the way a gentleman 
 should. There was na hanging around the 
 street and catching on as she went by. She 
 never seemed to see the chap who was waiting 
 for just that slightly encouraging smile that 
 Would give him the courage to come with her. 
 
 And this attitude came pretty near being the 
 right way to treat the boys who seemed to think 
 that all they had to do to get a girl was to give 
 her a chance to go to an oyster supper with 
 them. 
 
 51 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 But there was one man whom Dolly went with 
 oftener than with any other and strange to say 
 he was the head clerk in Larry Benjamin's, and 
 Larry Benjamin, as everybody knew, was the 
 only merchant in Hampton who came anywhere 
 near worrying Barlow with his competition. 
 
 As Tobias walked slowly downtown one even- 
 ing just after supper enjoying the first cigar he 
 had smoked that day, he saw Jack Henderson, 
 Larry Benjamin's head clerk, starting out in the 
 best rubber tired runabout the village livery af- 
 forded, and Dolly Dingle by his side. 
 
 " Guess I'll drop in and see how Barlow is 
 taking it,'' the old merchant said to himself. 
 
 As he entered the store and walked back to 
 the office he saw that the proprietor was buried 
 in his books but did not seem to be doing any- 
 thing. Ledger and journal were open and pen 
 was in his hand but he was not turning over 
 the pages or using the pen. He did not even 
 hear Tobias coming. 
 
 The latter pulled a chair inside the railing 
 after him and as Barlow finally looked up with 
 a semi-scowl, he said, 
 
 Pretty tough, ain't it?" 
 What are you talking about?" asked Bar- 
 low. 
 
 " I was just sort o' thinking out loud. I meant 
 
 52 
 
 it 
 
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 ii 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 that it's tough to have to work for a living when 
 everybody else seems to be having a good time." 
 " Humph ! " ejaculated the younger man and 
 went at his books. 
 
 Tobias made no further remarks but puffed 
 away contentedly at his cigar meanwhile looking 
 Barlow over rather critically. At last the cigar 
 became too short to smoke and he threw it 
 away, asking, 
 
 " Been working in the cellar this afternoon ? " 
 " No," answered Barlow crossly. " What the 
 dickens made you think that ? " 
 
 Your clothes," said Tobias calmly. 
 Well, what's the matter with these clothes? 
 Haven't I got to wear my old clothes when I'm 
 at work ? " 
 
 "Oh yes, of course, and the older they are, 
 the better you'll work, I suppose. Now for in- 
 stance, take the work that you do here in the 
 store. You wait on customers a good deal and 
 you keep the books and do quite a lot of jobs 
 like that that call for overalls and a jumper and 
 naturally you ought to wear 'em. I was kind o' 
 surprised to see you without 'em on to protect 
 that good old suit, that's all. I was in Larry 
 Benjamin's the other day and a fellow came out 
 and waited on me and he had nice clothes on, 
 all pressed up so the creases showed and darned 
 
 53 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 if he didn't make me think I was doing business 
 in a pretty classy store — and you know what 
 Larry Benjamin's is like? It ain't so much. 
 But rU bet that fellow will spoil that suit, or 
 wear it out or something. Of course it didn't 
 probably cost more than $15, but a man ought to 
 be careful about his clothes and make 'em last. 
 You see, if they last long enough he'll never 
 have to buy any more." 
 
 '' Go as far as you like," said Barlow. " Have 
 all the fun with me you want to. You must 
 think clothes grow on bushes." 
 
 '' That suit you've got on looks as if it grew 
 on a bush and one that was pretty far out in the 
 woods at that." 
 
 For some time nothing more was said. There 
 was no sound but that of the suspiciously indus- 
 trious pen scratching rapidly along. At last 
 Barlow threw down the pen, swung around and 
 took out a cigar and handed it to Tobias and then 
 
 lit one for himself. 
 
 " Now," said he, " what about this clothes 
 thing? I'll be the goat. Aren't these clothes 
 all right for work ? " 
 
 "Yes, for some kinds," said Tobias. "But 
 I'll tell you what, I like to see the proprietor of a 
 store looking as if he was making money. I 
 like to see him look like a modern business man, 
 
 54 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 not like a plumber's assistant on his job. Prob- 
 ably there was a time when people went into a 
 store expecting to see the merchant looking like 
 a hired man at milking time but there have been 
 just as many improvements in some things as 
 there have been in others. All the improvements 
 in storekeeping haven't been in dressing up the 
 store. Part of them have been in dressing up 
 the help and the boss. 
 
 "When we can put in fixtures that make it 
 possible to handle the dirty kinds of goods in a 
 white duck suit and not spot it, we make it pos- 
 sible for the fellows behind the counter to look 
 a little more inviting. Nobody prefers to do 
 business with a man in a dirty collar or ragged 
 clothes. 
 
 " Most of your customers are women and they 
 are in the habit of apologizing when anybody 
 comes into their homes and catches them in an 
 old wrapper. They don't think it's very good 
 housekeeping to be around in an unattractive cos- 
 tume at the hours when people are liable to 
 drop in. 
 
 " They are pretty apt to apply their logic to 
 storekeepers. And more than that, the fellow 
 that is just downright unattractive to look at by 
 reason of dirt and holes won't make the women 
 want to come any oftener than is necessary. Of 
 
 55 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 course you think you are economizing and you're 
 a little sore because I say anything about it and 
 you're a little more sore because that chap over 
 at Larry Benjamin's has gone out riding with 
 your Miss Dingle. No explanations necessary," 
 as Barlow started to speak. " I can see as far 
 through a stonewall as the next man. 
 
 " But, say, if you wear that kind of clothes 
 around all the time, you can't blame a girl like 
 Dolly Dingle, excuse me, Miss Dingle, from tak- 
 ing vip a little with a classy dresser like Jack 
 Henderson. There sure is a fellow that knows 
 how to wear his clothes and when to wear 'em 
 too, for I'll bet that when he's at work on a 
 dirty job he knows enough to put on the clothes 
 for it, but he doesn't regard selling goods as a 
 dirty job, and a job is pretty apt to be about 
 what we call it at that. 
 
 " Pretty near the most important thing 
 though about this clothes business for you is the 
 fact that the boss of the store, if he wears sloppy 
 clothes, is just dead sure to find in a little while 
 that his clerks are getting to wearing them. 
 Now how can you expect the boys to think it's 
 worth while to dress up on ten or twelve per 
 when the boss doesn't do it on whatever he is 
 making out of the whole shooting match? 
 
 " There's little Nick Blish that was the most 
 
 56 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 finicky kid in the high school the teachers tell 
 me and now since he's been working here he's 
 got so he doesn't polish his shoes except on Sun- 
 days and his collar, I noticed as I came in, looks 
 like he belonged to the anti-laundry league. 
 
 " Of course the boys brushed up a little when 
 Miss Dingle came and some of them will prob- 
 ably keep it up. You started in pretty well 
 yourself, but here you are again! Darned if I 
 don't sometimes think that a girl will do a man 
 more harm by not paying much attention to him 
 than she will do him good by being his sure 
 enough Honey. 
 
 " If I was in business and just about on the 
 ragged edge and afraid the sheriff would step 
 in next week, do you know what I'd do to 
 stand off his coming and straighten things out 
 so that people would think everything was com- 
 ing my way and so they would come my way ? " 
 
 " I'm no mind reader," said Barlow a little 
 dryly. 
 
 " Well, you'd make money by learning to be. 
 I'd go right out and buy a new suit of clothes 
 the first thing, if I had to use my last dollar in 
 cash to get possession of them, and I'd rig my- 
 self up so that I'd look like old Mr. Prosperity 
 himself. And I wouldn't hide my light under a 
 bushel either. I'd get out and hustle around 
 
 57 
 

 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 town from one place to another on business and 
 give everyone a chance to see those new clothes 
 right away. And that little scheme with some 
 others would make an impression I'll bet. 
 
 " People like to do business with a man who 
 IS prosperous and they like to trade in a pros- 
 perous store. Trade follows the crowd. You 
 can't make a store look prosperous when the peo- 
 ple who run it look like last year's birds' nests 
 You know the saying, * There aren't any birds 
 in last year's nest ' ? It's so near true that no- 
 body disputes it." 
 Tobias waited for Barlow to speak. 
 You are a good deal older than I, Mr. Jen- 
 kins, and I guess you are pretty near right when 
 It comes to points about storekeeping, but I've 
 been right here in Hampton long enough to be 
 able to point out to you quite a bunch of fel- 
 lows who have started in as swell dressers and 
 finished as tin horn gamblers and paper sports. 
 It seems to me that a man might a good deal 
 better keep his swell dressing until he has the 
 price to do it on his own money." 
 
 The Old Storekeeper could not but acknowl- 
 edge the force of this argument and he said, 
 
 " Of course, of course. But just because one 
 girl plays the piano till she wears the first joints 
 off from all of her fingers you wouldn't say that 
 
 58 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 nobody ought to play the piano. A man's a fool 
 to go to the extreme in anything and if he hasn't 
 got sense enough to keep down to proper limits 
 in dressing or in smoking or in advertising or 
 anything else, he'd better go wrong on the side 
 of under-doing it rather than overdoing it. 
 
 "You remember old Major Anderson? They 
 used to call him ^ Superinduce Anderson.' Well, 
 he was strong for the long words. Instead of 
 throwing one in once in a while where it be- 
 longed, he insisted on tangling up everything 
 he said with language that seemed to be troubled 
 with too much upper story. He used to take 
 care of the rector's garden and one day he rushed 
 into the house where the rector's wife was at 
 work and exclaimed * Madam the male hen has 
 escaped the paling and is now roaming at large 
 in the horticultural enclosure.' * What, Major,' 
 the lady said, ^ is the rooster out ? ' * That, 
 Madam, is the intelligence I intended to con- 
 vey.' 
 
 " Now you see, don't you, that just as soon as 
 a fellow goes to an extreme he makes himself 
 ridiculous. I don't believe in a fellow making 
 himself ridiculous or making himself a fop or 
 making a clothes-horse of himself any more than 
 you do, but I don't believe either in his spending 
 all his life in fear that he will offend one of his 
 
 59 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 I. 
 
 ., t= 
 
 ''A man's a fool to go to the extreme in dressing." 
 
 60 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 creditors by wearing better clothes than that 
 fellow does. 
 
 " When a man comes in here and wants credit 
 for some household goods, are you more apt to 
 trust him if he wears good clothes or if he is 
 the walking image of the farmer's crow chaser? 
 You can tell whether he is a well dressed man 
 or a pin-head in a new suit of ten-ninety-eight 
 clothes that he saved money for by going without 
 underwear all summer." 
 
 " You sort of think then that I ought to turn 
 over a new leaf ? " asked Barlow. 
 
 " Well," continued Tobias, " it wouldn't do you 
 a bit of harm to take the matter under consider- 
 ation. * Spruce up ' is a pretty darned good 
 motto for any man, no matter how careful he 
 is. There is always a little chance for improve- 
 ment and I'll say this much, that whatever dif- 
 ference it may make with business to wear bet- 
 ter looking clothes and to look as if you were 
 making something more than enough to pay the 
 interest on your debts, there isn't any doubt in 
 my mind that Miss Dolly Dingle will be a good 
 deal more proud to be seen walking downtown 
 with you if you look like the proprietor than she 
 will if you look like the janitor or the chore-boy. 
 
 " It won't be so easy for you to get the clerks 
 back to dressing neatly as it will be to get your- 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 self so. In time they would notice the differ- 
 ence and be effected by it, but you know it's al- 
 ways a lot easier to influence people for wrong 
 than it is to influence them for right. You can 
 pull a man down hill easier than you can push 
 him up. 
 
 " If I were you I'd take the bull right by the 
 horns and save any delay and at the same time 
 make it easier to mention. A fellow hates to be 
 all the time calling a clerk's attention to his 
 clothes, but if you call the boys together any 
 night after closing up and say ' Fellows, Fm go- 
 ing to turn over a new leaf. You've probably 
 noticed that I've been going around looking 
 pretty sloppy lately and I'm going to put on my 
 best suit of clothes and polish my shoes every 
 day and see that my collars and cuffs are always 
 clean and I want to know how many of you will 
 join me in this.' I'll bet the boys will all be right 
 with you." 
 
 Barlow made a rather wry face as Tobias 
 thus indirectly accused him of being unpleasantly 
 untidy, but at last he smiled and accepted the ad- 
 vice with good grace. That is the secret of the 
 success of a good many men ; they had the abil- 
 ity to take advice. 
 
 Every man can give advice and most of us 
 like to do it, but not one in a thousand can take 
 
 62 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 it and profit by it. But that one goes a long 
 way. 
 
 John Barlow was not a remarkable fellow in 
 most ways and he did not like to have his faults 
 brought to his attention much better than you 
 or I may like it, but he had grown used to Tobias' 
 ways and the older man had made his advice 
 valuable and almost necessary to the younger. 
 John was wise enough to realize that however 
 bad the medicine might taste at times, it cer- 
 tainly did him good and when he took it it al- 
 ways proved to be the right thing, and when he 
 did not take it the result generally showed to 
 his disadvantage. 
 
 The business on this particular evening 
 amounted to very little as no one seemed to be 
 out shopping and there had been no call for 
 Barlow in the front as he sat and listened to 
 Tobias. At last however there came a little 
 rush and the merchant had to excuse himself and 
 Tobias could not help but notice that he glanced 
 rather uneasily at himself in the mirror as he 
 started for the front of the store. 
 
 The older man smiled a little to himself as he 
 got up and re-lit his cigar and wandered toward 
 the front door. He stood outside in the door- 
 way for some time and at last closing time came 
 and he heard Barlow inside asking the boys if 
 
 63 
 

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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 they would mind staying five minutes as he 
 wanted to talk to them a little about something 
 that he had on his mind. 
 
 As he heard this, Tobias smiled again and sat 
 down on the front steps to wait for Barlow. 
 
 After about fifteen minutes the clerks came out 
 and went home and right after them came their 
 employer. Tobias got up and said, 
 
 " I heard you ask one of the boys to stay and 
 I had some curiosity to know what they would 
 say. Did they take up with your suggestion ? " 
 
 " Yes, they all agreed that they might improve 
 upon their appearance without much trouble. 
 They admitted that I had been looking pretty 
 tacky, too, lately and that didn't help my pride 
 any, but you didn't leave me much of that when 
 you got through so I didn't feel sore about it at 
 all. I thought that I might as well take your 
 advice right away because if there is any ad- 
 vantage in looking better I might as well begin 
 to get it to-morrow as to wait a week or a 
 month." 
 
 They were walking leisurely up the street and 
 at this juncture Tobias turned his corner re- 
 marking, "And then, the sooner you look bet- 
 ter, the sooner Dolly Dingle will be proud to 
 walk down the street with you instead of with 
 Jack Henderson.'^ 
 
 64 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 Barlow made no response to this and the 
 absence of any denial may have meant assent or 
 not. In either case Tobias would not have 
 changed his opinion. 
 
 65 
 
'<:%' 1 
 
 ••E 
 
 {• 
 
 I I 
 
 FIFTH TALK 
 
 HANDLING THE MONEY 
 
 In the village of Hampton most of the stores 
 kept open for a little while on the forenoon of a 
 holiday like Thanksgiving day but closed up at 
 noon or a little before for the rest of the day. 
 
 Barlow had told the clerks that they need 
 none of them work on this day and he himself 
 had only gone down and opened the store at 
 about nine o'clock in order that he might be 
 there to accommodate any stray customer who 
 perhaps was really in need of something in the 
 line. 
 
 It was about eleven o'clock and he was just 
 thinking about locking the door and going home 
 when the Old Storekeeper wandered in as if 
 looking for a place to loaf for a little while and 
 Barlow took advantage of the situation to talk 
 to him. 
 
 " Mr. Jenkins," said he, *' I haven't a thing to 
 do or a place to go till dinner-time. Come on 
 back and let's have a visit." 
 
 66 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " I guess you know, son, that when you say 
 ' visit ' to me, you strike right into my long suit," 
 said Tobias. '' I'm the champion long distance 
 visitor of this little berg all right. My family 
 is getting the Thanksgiving dinner ready and 
 they don't want me around home so I'm sort of 
 on the town for a while." 
 
 " My case exactly," said Barlow. " My 
 mother doesn't need any of my help in getting 
 up a dinner and there isn't a thing to do out- 
 side on a raw day like this. Beside I want to 
 talk to you about something that is pretty im- 
 portant to me. I'm trying to make up my mind 
 to put in some new kind of a system of handling 
 the store money and I can't decide what to do. 
 What would you do ? " 
 
 '' Well now," Tobias answered, " that's a 
 pretty flat question. I don't know as I want to 
 stand or fall on a single answer recommending 
 some kind of a plan. It's a good deal like 
 asking a man if he's stopped beating his wife 
 and making him answer yes or no. If I tell 
 you what kind of a cash handling system to use 
 and it falls down, then I lose my reputation, and 
 if it makes good, you think it's because you han- 
 dle it so well. I can't win any way you work it. 
 Ask me something easier." 
 
 Barlow insisted however that he was in earn- 
 
 67 
 
 'I 
 
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 ]-l 
 
 fi! 
 
i I 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 est and that he wanted the advice of Tobias and 
 that he would not hold him responsible in any 
 event. 
 
 *' What's the matter with the old money 
 drawer ? " asked the Old Storekeeper finally. 
 *' I always used one and I made quite a little 
 money, didn't I? Aren't you getting a little 
 highfalutin'?" 
 
 There was an almost imperceptible smile 
 around his eyes as he put this question. Tobias 
 was evidently disposed to try out the younger 
 man and see what made him want a different 
 cash system. 
 
 Barlow responded with queries of his own. 
 
 *' You always used folded wrapping paper and 
 you sold all your crackers out of a barrel and 
 you went home to see what your wife wanted 
 instead of telephoning, too, didn't you? Is that 
 a sign that roll wrapping paper isn't a conven- 
 ience, that package crackers aren't easier to han- 
 dle, and that it isn't a good deal quicker to tele- 
 phone than to walk ? " 
 
 '' In other words, just because I was old 
 fashioned enough to use an open and shut money 
 drawer it isn't any sign that better ways haven't 
 been invented since ? Is that the idea ? " 
 
 Barlow nodded with a grin. '* That's about 
 it," said he. 
 
 68 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " Well, John, I guess you^re right. It wasn't 
 old fashioned though in those days to put your 
 money into a sliding box that had a bunch of 
 keys under it that were supposed to make it 
 hard to open. It was the best thing yet invented. 
 But I don't believe in standing still and I must 
 confess that I have sometimes wondered why 
 you haven't been looking after the money end 
 as well as the other parts of the business. 
 
 " I just believe that there's a whole lot of 
 money goes wrong or doesn't go at all in han- 
 dling the business of a store. It stands to reason 
 that everybody connected with the store is go- 
 ing to forget once in a while, and as far as I've 
 noticed nobody ever forgets so that the store 
 makes more money by it. Every time anybody 
 forgets it takes something out of the profits. 
 
 *^ Now, I'm just as careful as anybody. When 
 I was running this store I was right on the job 
 every minute and I'll be darned if there weren't 
 one or two men who were always telling me, 
 when they settled their bills, about something 
 they'd bought that I hadn't charged. You know 
 how it is. There are customers who always 
 seem to get in on all the mistakes you make. If 
 the goods are delivered wrong, they're the ones 
 who don't get their order. If the new brand 
 you've guaranteed falls down with anvbody it 
 
 69 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 falls down with them. If there is an over- 
 charge, or a shortage of goods, they get it. 
 Well, I can remember three customers at least 
 who were always finding something wrong with 
 their bills and quite often it was that they'd had 
 goods that weren't on the bill. That shows they 
 were honest people anyway, but it doesn't show 
 that I never forgot to charge things that other 
 families bought. If I forgot for one, I had 
 the same chance of forgetting for all and I did 
 it too. And if I did it, anxious as I was to get 
 the money, you can bet that the boys did it. 
 
 " And I made other mistakes. I made mis- 
 takes in giving folks too much change. Some- 
 times they told me but I am sure that sometimes 
 they didn't. I took out money to buy things 
 for myself and didn't set it down. Of course 
 it was all my money, but then if a man's going 
 to know what his business is doing, he doesn't 
 want money going out or coming in that isn't 
 set down — and he doesn't want any going out 
 that he doesn't know about. You've had a lit- 
 tle experience of that sort yourself and you 
 know that there are such things as dishonest 
 clerks.*' 
 
 " Yes," said Barlow. " That was certainly a 
 surprise to me to know that that boy would take 
 my money." 
 
 70 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " Well, it needn't have been a surprise to you 
 to find out that if you left your money lying 
 around loose somebody would take it. I be- 
 lieve in the honesty of the average man all right. 
 I'm no pessimist, but I know mighty well that 
 it's temptation that makes folks go wrong and 
 it stands to reason that the oftener and the more 
 they're tempted, the oftener and the more they'll 
 go wrong. 
 
 " Now I'm going to say something that you 
 won't agree with me in. I'm going to say that 
 when you keep the store cash in a common money 
 drawer that can be opened by any clerk in the 
 store, you are leaving your money around loose 
 during business hours just the same as if you 
 piled it on a shelf back of the counter." 
 
 Oh, I don't think that at all," said Barlow. 
 Of course you don't. If you did you 
 wouldn't do it, and anyway I said you wouldn't 
 agree with me. But look here! You people 
 here take in money and put it into a drawer 
 without any record of it at all except the money 
 itself. Think of the things you don't know — 
 or probably it would be easier to count up the 
 little you do know. All you know is that when 
 you count up the money it comes to so much. 
 You don't know what mistakes have been made, 
 how much money has not been put in, how much 
 
 71 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 has been taken out, how many people have been 
 given too much or too little change. You don't 
 know a darned thing that you ought to know 
 in order to keep careful track of your business. 
 
 " I haven't anything to say about the possible 
 dishonesty of your clerks. Pretty nearly every 
 man has at least one dishonest hair in his head. 
 I have some and you have some. We all have. 
 The public in general doesn't find out about it. 
 You won't show me yours and I won't show you 
 mine, but they're there. You found that out 
 when you thought every clerk in your store was 
 honest as the day was long while there was one 
 who was putting your profits into his pocket. 
 Most of us can keep our inclination to dishonesty 
 under control, but the oftener we're tempted to 
 let it go, the more likely we are to do it. You've 
 got a good lot of boys here in the store — oh yes, 
 and one girl too. I nearly forgot. I wouldn't 
 think of accusing any of them of dishonesty 
 any more than you ought to think of tempting 
 them to be dishonest. 
 
 " But there are things to consider in han- 
 dling your money besides the mere possibility 
 of some of it being stolen. If we're going to 
 talk about what kind of a cash system is the 
 best for you to use, we might as well go about it 
 in a logical kind of way and consider a little. 
 
 72 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " The old wooden money drawer with the joke- 
 lock on it you admit isn't good enough for you. 
 You admit that it doesn't deliver the goods it's 
 supposed to deliver, for divers and sundry rea- 
 sons. Now the question is what will deliver the 
 money and deliver it all and in addition show 
 you all about where you got it, who took it in 
 and so on ? " 
 
 " I'd thought," said Barlow, '' that one of 
 these filing cases with every credit customer hav- 
 ing a separate space and carbon copies of every- 
 thing made at the time of the sale would be a 
 pretty good thing for my credit sales." 
 
 "I'll tell you one thing," said Tobias. "If 
 you mean one of these schemes that leaves at 
 my house with every lot of goods a dirty little 
 yellow sheet of paper with a black back to it that 
 gets my hands all black every time I touch it, 
 count me off your credit list. I'll pay cash first. 
 Why one merchant in this town that we buy pro- 
 visions from leaves one of those things with 
 every lot of goods and then the first of the 
 month he comes around with another little black- 
 backed sheet that says on it, $4.56, or some other 
 amount and that's practically all it does say be- 
 side my name. The fellow who brings it in says 
 it's a bill and I have to pay it. What's it for? 
 I ask. He tells me that he's left the bills hang- 
 
 73 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 ing on a hook inside the kitchen when he took 
 the goods up. I don't believe that he did more 
 than half the time, but even if he did I don't 
 propose to do his book-keeping for him and go 
 out in my kitchen every day and ask the cook 
 for the latest bunch of provision bills. Why, 
 if all the merchants here did business on that 
 plan, I would have to hire a book-keeper to keep 
 me posted on what I was paying for, so that I'd 
 have some idea of whether I was getting my own 
 or somebody else's slips on the hook. Get the 
 hook for that scheme anyway." 
 
 " I'd never thought of it in just that way," 
 said Barlow. " It's a very convenient scheme in 
 some ways for the merchant." 
 
 " Oh yes, no doubt. But it makes an awfully 
 queer set of books. I know a man who's got 
 one of these big boxes in his store with a set 
 of accounts in it and he's worried to death all 
 the time for fear the store will burn and he'll lose 
 the accounts. He can't put the thing in the 
 safe and it's just about as fireproof as that little 
 tin cash box that I used to lug back and forth 
 night and morning with my currency and bills 
 in. You want your accounts in such shape that 
 you can keep them in the safe. 
 
 " Now, I've given this thing some thought off 
 and on and I'll just name over to you some of 
 
 74 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 the disadvantages that your cash system mustn't 
 possess. Some of them go with one kind of a 
 plan and some with another. I won't go into 
 details about them because you can understand 
 them without. Here they are. It mustn't be 
 slow. It mustn't increase mistakes. It mustn't 
 permit dishonesty or theft. It mustn't be ex- 
 pensive to operate. It mustn't be slow to bal- 
 ance up at night. It musn't leave any more to 
 the clerk than is necessary; a machine makes 
 less mistakes than a person. It mustn't produce 
 a record of only part of the sales. It mustn't 
 get out of order. It mustn't necessitate goods 
 and money and sales slip and everything else 
 going off somewhere out of sight of the cus- 
 tomer to stay anywhere from ten minutes to 
 half an hour while the customer can't do any- 
 thing but wonder and get hot under the collar. 
 It mustn't make it possible for customers to walk 
 out without paying for their purchases as they 
 can do pretty easily sometimes when they are 
 supposed to go to a cashier and settle. It 
 shouldn't make it necessary to count up the 
 money any time of day when it's desirable to 
 know how much business has been done. It 
 shouldn't be merely a cash system but it ought 
 to be a complete credit system as well. In some 
 stores to make a cash sale takes one system. 
 
 75 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 To make a credit sale takes another. To make a 
 check or coupon for the customer takes still 
 another. I don't know how many faults there 
 are that a cash handling system may have but 
 I guess about a hundred thousand. It's gen- 
 erally easy to find flaws in anything." 
 
 '^That's all right, Mr. Jenkins, but I don't 
 see that it brings me any nearer to what I want 
 to know. Suppose you go ahead now and tell 
 me what advantages I want in a cash handling 
 system, what it ought to do. I would like some 
 kind of a plan that will, as you say, get every- 
 thing, all kinds of sales, under one cover and 
 one operation. I don't suppose I can get every- 
 thing I want in any one plan, but tell me what 
 I want and then if I can find some system that 
 covers what you say, I'll be all right, and anyway 
 I can probably find the one that comes nearest 
 to it." 
 
 *' Well, I don't know all the advantages yoti 
 want, but I guess I can name off more than 
 you'll find in any one system. I don't believe 
 there's a plan or a system or a machine made that 
 will do everything. If there is, you get it to- 
 morrow. You want protection from dishonest 
 clerks — yes you do, whether you have them or 
 not. You may have them sometime and the 
 time to put in a system is now, not when a new 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 clerk comes in. You want to make it neces- 
 sary for the clerk to make a record of every 
 business transaction, then it will be a habit and 
 he won't forget to make charges for goods not 
 paid for. And if there is a record of every 
 transaction, you will know what happens while 
 you are out or when you don't happen to be 
 looking. If you can put a mechanical watch on 
 the boys to pick out and show up their mis- 
 takes, they won't make so many of them and 
 you won't make so many yourself. They can 
 be corrected and charged up to the right source. 
 
 " You want to be able to tell who makes the 
 mistakes if they are made. You want a sys- 
 tem that will prevent disputes between the clerk 
 and the customer. You want something that 
 won't keep the customer waiting. I wouldn't 
 do business a minute in one of these stores where 
 a fellow has to cool his heels for a quarter of 
 an hour while they get his change ready for him. 
 A man likes to step in and buy and step right 
 out again. Nix on your long distance money 
 drawer for mine. 
 
 " The clerks will make mistakes enough any- 
 way so that you don't want a system that makes 
 mistakes itself. You want to do as much as 
 you can by machinery. It is the human ele- 
 ment that falls down and that makes the mis- 
 
 17 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 takes that cause trouble. The machine generally 
 works all right. It's the man who forgets or 
 who looked the other way for a minute that 
 causes the railroad accidents. The engine runs 
 all right. If you could reduce your cash system 
 to a plan that left the clerk nothing to do but 
 to push a button you would get rid of a whole 
 lot of mistakes. The simpler the work and the 
 more regular, the more nearly the same for every 
 transaction, the less chance of mistakes. 
 
 "If you want to keep the clerks honest, put a 
 check on them. Make it necessary that every 
 time they take in money they make a record that 
 can be seen by the customer and that you can 
 see if you want to. When it is left for the 
 clerk to write something in a book or somewhere 
 else if he happens to think of it and wants to, 
 it's left for him to do pretty darned near as he 
 pleases. 
 
 " You don't want to bother with any cashier. 
 You never know when you're getting one that's 
 all right, and anyway a good cashier who won't 
 make mistakes costs money and doesn't act as 
 any correction on the clerks because all she can 
 tell about a transaction is what's on the slip that 
 comes to her. She can't be a mind reader — not 
 at the price you could afford to pay. You see, 
 it doesn't cost anything to have the clerks make 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 €€ 
 
 They are supposed to go to the cashier and settle," 
 
 79 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 their own change and it costs wages of one ex- 
 tra and takes up more of everybody's time to 
 use a cashier. 
 
 "Suppose you take a scheme that makes it 
 necessary for the customer to go and pay a 
 cashier before leaving the store. Suppose the 
 customer buys from two or three different clerks 
 and gets a sales slip from each one. Who's go- 
 ing to know that the customer pays more than 
 one of the sales slips ? I beh'eve that customers 
 are mainly honest, but I want to tell you, John, 
 that there are a few who aren't honest and if 
 you get a plan they can beat, you'll get all of 
 their trade and it won't make any money for you 
 either. 
 
 " A cashier can just about skin you out of all 
 the profit of the business if she wants to do 
 it. You can't stand over a cashier every minute. 
 You might as well be cashier yourself as to do 
 that. You can't spend all your time hanging 
 around watching to see whether the clerks use 
 your cash system right or not. You've got to 
 have something that works right along whether 
 you're there or not. 
 
 "The more business you're doing, the more 
 the clerks are rushed, the more chances for mis- 
 takes unless you get a system that is pretty 
 nearly all automatic and doesn't leave anything 
 
 80 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 for the clerk to do but to act as a kind of con- 
 necting link between the customer and the place 
 for the money. 
 
 " I don't want to spoil anybody's business on 
 cash registers but one kind of a system I wouldn't 
 have and that's one of these fancy, expensive 
 oak money drawers with a desk top with a 
 pad on it or a roll of paper feeding under a 
 glass lid where the clerk is supposed to write 
 down things that people buy. Why, that's noth- 
 ing in the world but a money drawer with a 
 blank book attached. You can fix up that same 
 thing by just laying a pad down by your old 
 money drawer there and telling the boys to write 
 down in it what they sell. Instead of paying 
 out twenty-five dollars or more for the scheme, 
 it won't cost you more than ten cents for a 
 couple of pads. That system, if it is a system, 
 has all the disadvantages of your old money 
 drawer plan and the additional one that it will 
 take about twice or three times as long to finish 
 up a transaction. Whatever you get, see that it 
 has advantages over the old way all along the 
 line. 
 
 ** Right in connection with your cash system 
 you want a nice working credit system. You 
 want them working right together so that when 
 a clerk makes a credit sale he has to go through 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 just about the same motions that he does when 
 he makes a cash sale. You want a credit sys- 
 tem that will make it easy to tell how much 
 any man owes you without delay. You want one 
 that keeps all accounts separate and plainly 
 labelled and one that doesn't show all the books 
 of the firm to any customer who happens to 
 want to see his account. And if you want a 
 system that makes it absolutely certain that when 
 anybody pays on account their account is going 
 to get proper credit for the payment, no matter 
 whether they pay the clerk at the counter, the 
 boy on the delivery wagon or someone who goes 
 out to the curb as the customer drives up. 
 
 " You want a credit system that keeps a per- 
 manent record of every transaction and that 
 doesn't leave you with nothing to go by after 
 the bill has been paid. Every once in a while 
 there is occasion to go behind the returns. You 
 want protection and convenience for yourself, for 
 your customers and for your clerks. You want 
 some kind of a plan that makes it easy to keep 
 track of how much people owe you so that you 
 won't let their accounts get too big and so that 
 you can send them bills often. If you can't get 
 a credit system that gives you all these advan- 
 tages, you might better go on a cash basis. Half 
 of the troubles of the credit method of doing busi- 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 ness are due more to the way accounts are kept 
 and handled than to the fact that there are ac- 
 counts. If you have the right kind of a credit 
 system, the credit basis will get you more busi- 
 ness than the cash basis in pretty nearly every 
 case. 
 
 " There's just one more view of this thing that 
 I want you to take and that is this. You want 
 a system that will make you pay for everything 
 that you yourself take out of stock in goods and 
 that will make it necessary for you yourself to 
 make a record of it when you take money out 
 of the drawer. You may say that it's all yours 
 anyway and that it doesn't matter, but I want 
 to tell you that it does matter a whole lot in 
 a way you haven't thought of. If your clerks 
 see you taking goods and money when you want 
 them and making no record of it, you will be 
 setting them an example that you don't want 
 followed. Of course it's perfectly honest for 
 you to help yourself to your own and it's per- 
 fectly dishonest for them to help themselves 
 to it. But all the same there is an influence 
 even in that apparently harmless habit that has 
 helped before now to make a clerk dishonest. 
 And then, further, if you take goods out of 
 stock as you want them and make no entry or 
 payment of the transaction, you will very likely 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 effect your business statement for the year a 
 hundred or two hundred dollars in its accuracy. 
 And to take money out of the money drawer 
 without charging it up to yourself is the worst 
 kind of business. 
 
 " If I were to talk to you all the afternoon 
 about this business I wouldn't get it all said. 
 You think over what I've told you. I don't 
 know of any perfect money handling system. 
 Perfection isn't human and you don't find any 
 of it in business, but when you find the thing 
 that comes the nearest to it, get it and get it 
 quick, because if it's a good thing to have and 
 a money saver, the sooner it begins to work for 
 you, the sooner it will begin to declare dividends. 
 Now I've got to go and get the ice cream and 
 take it home for dinner. I'll see you again." 
 
 Barlow himself stayed behind in the store to 
 think and figure over what Tobias had told him. 
 
 84 
 
 SIXTH TALK 
 
 111 
 
 SPECIAL NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING 
 
 Henry Foss was sweeping the pavement in 
 front of his store one morning when the Old 
 Storekeeper came along and accosted him. 
 
 " Henry, come into your emporium and sell 
 me a quarter's worth of those same Rappahanna 
 Stinkadoras that you gave me yesterday. That's 
 a pretty fair cigar considering the store that 
 sells it." 
 
 ** Didn't I tell you that was a good one ? " 
 replied Henry undisturbed by the slanderous 
 name bestowed upon his leading ten center. " I 
 know the man that makes those cigars. He 
 comes pretty near being onto his job. There's 
 stock in those smokes, believe me." 
 
 " Why don't you sell more of 'em then ? " 
 asked Tobias. " It's a long time since I've 
 bought as good a cigar as that here in Hampton 
 — or anywhere else for that matter." 
 
 " Well, I ain't refusing to sell 'em to anyone 
 that wants to buy, am I ? " 
 
 85 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 ':i U 
 
 "A hatter can't leave a sample line of hats for his 
 ' customer to pick from," 
 
 86 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " No, I don't suppose you are, but you ought to 
 advertise them and get up a nice trade on them 
 because they'll stand recommending. If all the 
 smokers in Hampton who buy ten cent cigars 
 could try that brand, I'll bet it would suit nine- 
 tenths of them and they'd come back for more 
 and probably tell their wives to buy them for 
 their Christmas presents." 
 
 " How can I get all those smokers to come 
 and try them? I can't aflford to send out free 
 samples of every new cigar I get, and as far 
 as my experience goes, this free sampling thing 
 doesn't get you a whole lot of business/' 
 
 " That's because the samples don't go to the 
 right people. Of course you don't want to hand 
 out samples of ten cent cigars to people who 
 never pay more than a nickel for a smoke. 
 They won't appreciate the goods and they can't 
 afford to buy them. Sampling is the best way 
 of introducing any new brand of goods and it 
 pays if it's handled right. A cigar dealer has 
 an advantage over other merchants. A hatter, 
 for instance, can't leave a sample line of his 
 hats on a customer's table for him to pick from, 
 but you can afford to leave several samples of 
 cigars if it will make a customer for you. 
 
 " I believe that you could develop some trade 
 on that cigar through the newspapers. Of 
 
 87 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 course it costs money to advertise in the news- 
 papers but then it costs money to advertise in al- 
 most any way. Why don't you try using a news- 
 paper space in every issue of the best Hampton 
 newspaper? Get a space that is right next to 
 the sporting events and such news as is of the 
 most interest to the men. In that space run some 
 advertisements that will be interesting. ^ 
 
 " You can't make a dry, dull kind of adver- 
 tisement sell cigars or anything else. YouVe 
 got to make your ads interesting. Cigar adver- 
 tising wants to be pretty lively and catchy. For 
 instance, if you put into the space an ad that 
 reads, 'Buy your cigars at Foss' Cigar Store. 
 Best goods for the least money,' nobody will 
 ever pay any attention to that. That kind of 
 advertising is money wasted. 
 
 " Write a different advertisement for every 
 issue of the paper and make each one of them 
 tell something. Now, I suppose the tobacco in 
 these cigars is probably shade grown tobacco. 
 In one advertisement say that the tobacco used 
 in the Royal King is shade grown tobacco and 
 then go on and tell why shade grown tobacco 
 is better. A whole lot of smokers don't know 
 anything about the fine points of tobacco rais- 
 ing and cigar making. 
 
 " In another advertisement, tell about the san- 
 
 88 
 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 itary factory these cigars are made in. You 
 said they were made in a sanitary plant, didn't 
 you? If they weren't I don't want them. I'll 
 tell you that. 
 
 " And in the next ad explain why a darker 
 shade of tobacco is the best flavor and not nec- 
 essarily stronger than the pale, sickly, yellowish 
 kinds that fellows pick out when they think they 
 want a mild smoke. 
 
 " There's no end of things you can tell about 
 a high class cigar like this. See how the ash 
 sticks there and how nice it is? Why, say I'd 
 make a better salesman for these cigars than 
 you would, Henry. What'll you give nie to 
 get these started around town? You can tell 
 smokers how to smoke a cigar too, to get the best 
 out of it and most satisfaction. And I'm not 
 sure but that you can get a lot of five cent smok- 
 ers to buying ten cent cigars by explaining to them 
 that a ten cent cigar will go as far as two fives, 
 and put a man on a higher plane, make a higher 
 class man of him, give him more self-respect 
 than if he smokes cheap stuff. Get the men to 
 smoking less cigars and better ones and you will 
 do them some good and yourself too. 
 
 " It's a good plan to make a little smoker's 
 corner out of your advertisement. Have it a 
 space where people who smoke can find a little 
 
 89 
 
 II 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 good news, a few interesting items about tobacco 
 and its use every time. You might even head 
 the ad, ' Foss' Smoke Talks ' or ' Tobacco 
 News' or something like that. Then if you 
 make good by running some interesting facts in 
 that space you will get smokers in the habit of 
 reading that advertisement. A bright little say- 
 ing or proverb that will appeal to the smoker, 
 though it is not an advertising phrase, a dif- 
 ferent one each issue, will get men into the 
 habit of looking there for the latest. 
 
 " Cigars and tobacco have got to have a little 
 different treatment in their advertising from 
 shoes and patent medicines. But still, speaking 
 of patent medicine advertising, there's one thing 
 about it that you could copy to advantage in ad- 
 vertising cigars and that's the testimonials. If 
 you can get permission from a few local smok- 
 ers to quote what they say about your cigar, you 
 will hit the bullseye every time you shoot in one 
 of those quotations. Suppose Judge Simmons, 
 the old rascal, told you over the counter that 
 that Royal King was the best darned cigar he'd 
 ever bought in Hampton? Don't you suppose 
 you'd get the fellow who saw your ad to sit up 
 and take notice if you printed just what the old 
 Judge said? He'd let you do it too. Most old 
 smokers will let you quote them. The man who 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 doesn't like to see his name given space in the 
 newspaper in a way to show deference to his 
 opinion is a rare exception." 
 
 "Joe Blossom's wife said to him the other 
 night that he was getting so he'd rather stand 
 around down town and smoke those Royal King 
 cigars of his than come home to dinner. How'd 
 that do for a testimonial ? " Foss asked. 
 
 " K you could get permission to print that, 
 you'd have an advertisement that would be 
 worth something. Even if you couldn't get per- 
 mission to use the names in that case, you could 
 use the quotation and say you'll tell who it was 
 if anyone will come in and ask. People like to 
 read about what their neighbors say and do. Get 
 them into your advertising and you'll make your 
 talks as interesting as the news columns, and I 
 don't know but a good deal more so than some 
 of them. 
 
 " Of course you don't want to use all your 
 space telling about one cigar. There are lots 
 of other things in your stock that need to be 
 advertised. Smokers like to know about new 
 things, about novelties. They are always trying 
 new cigarettes, new tobaccos, new stogies, etc. 
 They come back to the old favorites a good many 
 times, but something new is attractive and you 
 want to have the reputation of being up to date 
 
 91 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 and having as much that's new as anybody has. 
 Whenever you have a novelty that's worth men- 
 tioning, mention it. If it's a pocket cigar lighter, 
 tell about it. If it's a new kind of pipe, describe 
 it. If it's a cigarette a little different or a little 
 better in value than the old brands, tell your 
 readers. You know pretty well what kind of 
 things interest smokers. Don't waste space tell- 
 ing them about things they don't care anything 
 about when you know of enough things they do 
 care about. 
 
 "There's one kind of smoke that it pays to 
 advertise and that mighty few cigar stores do 
 advertise much, and that's the extremely mild 
 kind. The woods are full of men who know 
 that they smoke too much but they can't seem 
 to stop. These men are looking for something 
 mild. If they are old smokers they sometimes 
 feel sort of ashamed to come in and ask for the 
 mildest cigar you've got. They think it stamps 
 them as cheap sports. And a good many young 
 smokers who might better be smoking something 
 mild are getting hold of cigars too strong for 
 them because they like to come in and call for a 
 cigar by name as if they knew what they were 
 about. 
 
 " Do you know what I'd do if I was in the 
 cigar business? I'd get hold of the very mildest 
 
 Q2 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 ten cent cigar I could find, one that wouldn't 
 hurt anybody to smoke and I'd advertise it 
 enough so that all these people who ought to be 
 smoking mild smokes and know it, could come in 
 and call for that cigar by name and know what 
 they were getting?" 
 
 " That's a good scheme," said Henry. " I'm 
 going to try that out. I know of just the cigar. 
 Just got a small box of 'em in to-day." 
 
 SELLING CHRISTMAS GIFTS TO WOMEN 
 
 " Another reason why you ought to be using 
 the newspapers right along now is that the holi- 
 day trade is here already for you to make money 
 on it. You've got a good line of all kinds of 
 smokes here. I can tell because I know what a 
 cigar stock ought to look like. Well, there isn't 
 a smoker in town but would be glad to get smokes 
 for Christmas if he could get the kind he likes 
 to smoke. 
 
 " The funny papers have joked so long about 
 the cigars a man's wife gives him for Christmas 
 that no woman dares to take a chance now on 
 buying cigars for her husband for Christmas. 
 She knows that she can't tell anything about 
 cigars and she's afraid his friends will get onto 
 the fact that she gave him poor cigars. 
 
 " The thing for you to do is to advertise cigars 
 
 93 
 
 
 
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 11 1-' 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 for Christmas presents. Just make it plain that 
 every smoker appreciates good cigars as a pres- 
 ent and them make it plainer yet that you have 
 the kind of smokes that will suit the smoker. 
 
 " Advertise like this : ' If your husband smokes, 
 he'll appreciate a gift of cigars that he likes. I 
 know what kind he likes. It's my business to 
 know. Come to my store and I'll sell you a box 
 or a half a box or a quarter's worth of cigars 
 that will suit him. Probably I know just the 
 brand he likes best, but if I sell you cigars for 
 anybody's Christmas you can give them with the 
 assurance that if the recipient would rather have 
 some other brand, he can trot right around to my 
 store and I'll exchange with him for any other 
 kind he wants.' When a woman finds that she 
 can buy cigars like that, she'll buy 'em. 
 
 " And you aren't taking any chances because 
 you can make the exchange when it's necessary 
 without any loss and if it brings to your store 
 to exchange a fellow who has been buying his 
 smokes somewhere else, you have a first class 
 chance to get him started on one of your brands. 
 
 " Then you've got lots of other things beside 
 cigars that make good Christmas presents to 
 smokers. Pipes ought to be big sellers all 
 through December and here again a woman 
 doesn't know much about what to buy and you 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 ought to offer to sell them with the privilege of 
 exchange. That's about the only way a woman 
 will buy for presents anything she isn't posted 
 on. 
 
 " You can develop a nice little Christmas busi- 
 ness on some of these goods by getting out a 
 circular letter and sending it to the wives of the 
 men who buy their cigars from you and to wives 
 of those who don't too. The average woman 
 has a hard time finding what to buy for her old 
 man for Christmas. He savs he doesn't want 
 anything and she knows he does and he'll be 
 sore if she doesn't get him something. He'll 
 be sour if she gets him something he doesn't 
 want because that means money wasted. But 
 send the wife a circular explaining how you are 
 ready to help her get her husband for Christmas 
 just the thing that will suit him and she ought 
 to welcome the suggestion. 
 
 " Christmas oflFers a cigar dealer an opportunity 
 to get rid of some unsalable goods too. I don't 
 mean that it's a chance for him to unload a lot 
 of poor stuff, because I don't believe it ever pays 
 to fool anyone by selling them a box of bad 
 cigars just on the chance that they will never 
 know they were bad. When a man is handed a 
 box of cigars for Christmas it is often accom- 
 panied by the remark, * I don't know what you 
 
 95 
 
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 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 smoke and these may not be any good but Foss 
 told me they were the best brand he had and 
 I had to go by his word on it.' There you are, 
 you see, if the cigars are bum, you get a black 
 eye with that man right away. YouVe stuck him 
 with some poor cigars and you've fooled an in- 
 nocent customer. If you can fool the smoker 
 it's better than fooling the non-smoker. 
 
 " What I mean by working off unsalable goods 
 is that you have in your cases certain brands of 
 perfectly good cigars that there is no longer 
 any call for. The cigars are all right only they're 
 kind of out of fashion, so to speak. There are 
 always a few boxes on hand of such brands that 
 the store is ready to close out. Get rid of them 
 at Christmas time. It's the same with some 
 other goods. These goods need not be specific- 
 ally advertised. It is salesmanship that sells 
 them. 
 
 ** If you want to make some special holiday 
 packages out of staple stock in hand, use holly 
 paper and holly tape or ribbon and sprigs of 
 holly or mistletoe in dressing up boxes. Use 
 ' Merry Christmas ' and Santa Claus labels, tags 
 and stickers to give a Christmas air to boxes of 
 cigars. It is possible in such ways to make 
 staple packages look like special packages and the 
 labels, etc., may be removed after Christmas so 
 
 96 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 that the stock unsold is not the same out of sea- 
 son looking stuff that actual special goods will 
 be. 
 
 " Another thing I would advertise just be- 
 fore Christmas is that you will deliver presents 
 to any address in town and that when desired 
 you will wrap and ship by mail or express any 
 goods bought at your store so that people want- 
 ing to send cigars to distant friends may simply 
 come in and pay for the goods and leave a card 
 to be inserted and your store does the rest. 
 This service takes a good deal of responsibility 
 off from the shoulders of the shopper and you 
 can afford to do the work for the profit in the 
 goods. 
 
 " People who are not in the habit of patroniz- 
 ing your store hesitate about asking such favors 
 as the above of you and they are apt to buy 
 something different or to buy their cigar pres- 
 ents at a general store where they are in the 
 habit of trading, to get the service they hate to 
 ask from you. It pays at holiday time to ad- 
 vertise service because people appreciate it bet- 
 ten then. This is where the exclusive cigar store 
 has the advantage over the store that makes 
 cigars simply one line in many and is so rushed 
 that it cannot give anyone the kind of service 
 that you can give at your busiest season. 
 
 97 
 
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More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 
 "Deliver presents to any address in town." 
 
 98 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " Don't forget to make your windows more at- 
 tractive than usual at the Christmas season. 
 Make them attractive in a different way too. 
 The usual cigar store window has no attraction 
 for a woman. The woman's attention is what 
 you want to get just now and in order to do this 
 It is necessary to use show cards that will draw 
 her to the window. Just cigars, no matter how 
 well shown will not do it because she realizes 
 that all cigars look alike to her. 
 
 " Use a big show card reading something like 
 this, 'Does HE Smoke? We sell Christmas 
 cigars that we guarantee HE will like ' ; or ' Buy 
 HIM a box of these cigars at $2.08. If HE 
 wants to change them for another brand he can 
 do so.' Here is another card suggestion: 
 ' Ladies ! A Suggestion ! Give HIM a box of 
 these cigars,' or ' HE will like these cigars. We 
 guarantee their quality.* 
 
 " You know what I mean ; something to at- 
 tract the women and show them that they can 
 buy from you a box of cigars that their men 
 will like, or that can be exchanged if they do not 
 suit. And by letting them exchange them I mean 
 let them bring back the whole full box or part 
 of it after some of the cigars have been smoked. 
 Be generous about it because the sales you get 
 on account of the offer are apt to be just so 
 
 99 
 
 1 '. « • 
 
 ■! 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 much velvet, so much goods that you otherwise 
 would not have sold. 
 
 '' Advertising is what sells the goods at Christ- 
 mas time and everybody else is after the Christ- 
 mas present trade so you will have to stir your- 
 self if you get your share. You probably think 
 that Tm offering a good deal of advice for a 
 fellow who never ran a cigar store but I'll tell 
 you right now that running a cigar store isn't 
 as different from running some other kinds of 
 a store as you might think. I want to see you 
 do the biggest December business you ever did 
 and if you give this advertising matter enough 
 care and work, you'll get the business. Now, 
 give me another quarter's worth of those famous 
 cigars and I'll be off. What? Well if you in- 
 sist ril take 'em but I don't believe you'll make 
 any money handing out free goods like that. 
 Good bye ! I'll be in again after Christmas prob- 
 ably." 
 
 SEVENTH TALK 
 
 DELIVERING THE GOODS 
 
 100 
 
 For some weeks Jack Henderson continued to 
 be very attentive to Dolly Dingle and since Jack 
 was a popular fellow with the Hampton girls his 
 apparent infatuation with this new girl who 
 " worked in a store " had its effect upon a few 
 of his friends who put on toplofty airs and 
 thought themselves a little better than other peo- 
 ple. 
 
 Some of these near-aristocratic young ladies 
 turned up their noses at Jack and Dolly and he 
 was left out of some of the parties. Further 
 than this there was a falling off in the pur- 
 chases of the offended damsels at Larry Ben- 
 jamin's store. 
 
 While Jack's boss did not say anything to him 
 about it, it gradually dawned upon the head 
 clerk of John Barlow's strongest competitor that 
 his actions were unpolitic to say the least. 
 
 He was a good deal taken with Miss Dolly but 
 he was a light-headed youth and thought more 
 
 lOI 
 
 
'&: 
 
 m\ 
 
 lyiore Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 of having all the girls like him than of having 
 just one. The result of this was that he began 
 to use some care about where he was seen with 
 Dolly. 
 
 He had not been careful more than two or 
 three times before he found himself possessed 
 of a beautifully frosted " mitten/' handed to him 
 by Dolly herself. Every girl knows intuitively 
 and instantly when her escort feels even the least 
 bit ashamed of her or of being seen with her, 
 no matter what the reason. 
 
 Dolly's affections had not been touched in the 
 slightest degree and she did not hesitate a mo- 
 ment about what to do when she saw how Jack 
 Henderson felt. 
 
 Jerry Barnard however was waiting to take 
 Jack's place. He had been a worshipful admirer 
 of Dolly from the first time she appeared in the 
 store. And when the Christmas Holiday sea- 
 son came, with its attendant rush of trade which 
 gave no one much time for love-making, it found 
 Barlow fretting more about the fact that he 
 could not keep Jerry away from Dolly than 
 about how to handle the Christmas business. 
 
 One feature of the business though was call- 
 ing for attention and at last it compelled Bar- 
 low to give it some decided thought. 
 
 It was the delivery question. The store did 
 
 102 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 not send out clerks to take orders but it did 
 deliver goods all over town. It had done this 
 from the first and the town covered a good deal 
 of territory and it occupied the time of one or 
 sometimes two clerks much of the day getting 
 ready anything from a five cent purchase up. 
 
 The proprietor of the store thought that his 
 delivery privilege was being abused. He began 
 to get sore about it and he acted a little peevish 
 when a woman would telephone in to have a 
 spool of thread sent out at once. 
 
 He sat at his desk one morning with a big 
 sheet of figures before him trying to figure out 
 how much money he lost on a spool of thread 
 that he had to deliver a quarter of a mile, when 
 in through the back door came the Old Store- 
 keeper with his collar turned up around his ears 
 and his nose red. 
 
 " Br-r-r-r ! Ain't this a dandy winter day ? 
 Why the dickens don't you get out and get a 
 little fresh air instead of sitting here doubled 
 up over your desk like a woodchuck chewing at 
 a clover?" 
 
 Barlow got up and pushed a chair over by the 
 radiator for Tobias and replied, 
 
 " I've got troubles enough of my own with- 
 out worrying about how to get oxygen into my 
 system. Say, how much do you suppose I lose 
 
 103 
 
 |i 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 on a five cent spool of thread that I have to take 
 clear out to Granny Bitter's house on a telephone 
 order? " 
 
 " You lose about as much as Charley Mc- 
 Guire lost when he paid his brother in-law a 
 dollar for a little piece of cheap pasteboard that 
 turned out to be the winning ticket in the lottery 
 drawing for that month. YouVe heard how he 
 kicked about that for a while ? " 
 
 " Where's there any chance to win in this lot- 
 tery ? " asked Barlow sourly. 
 
 '* Well, I'm not going to say that delivering 
 the goods is a source of profit and pleasure to 
 everyone concerned. And I'm not going to say 
 that it wouldn't be better if no one had to do it. 
 Personally I think this co-operative delivery 
 idea is a pretty good one ; delivering all done by 
 one man who makes it his business and every 
 fellow pays for having his stuflF taken out. If I 
 was selling some lines of goods that won't main- 
 tain a delivery department I certainly would hire 
 my delivering done. But I would deliver if my 
 competitors made any pretense of doing it and 
 I'd do it so well that I'd have them beat a mile. 
 
 " Almost everyone does deliver and you've 
 got to do it or else pay the customer for taking 
 his goods home by making him a special price. 
 As long as you've got to pay for it anyway, 
 
 104 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 rather than pay the customer, you might better 
 have the work done by your own help and see 
 that they do it right. 
 
 " Of course you don't make any profit on that 
 particular spool of thread itself, but if you take 
 the order cheerfully and deliver it quickly you 
 get the good will of Granny Bitters and I'm not 
 sure but it's worth quite a little money to have 
 a gossipy old woman like her on your side. You 
 certainly can't afford to be cross and refuse to 
 send the goods or she'd turn every woman on 
 her street against you, and if you act peevish 
 about doing it you don't get any credit for the 
 delivering and have all the trouble of it just the 
 
 same. 
 
 " But you ought to try to use a little sales- 
 manship in such cases. When a woman calls 
 you up and asks for the delivery of some item 
 that is so small that she knows you are doing 
 her a favor to bring it to her, take advantage of 
 the situation and suggest that perhaps there is 
 something else she would like when your deliv- 
 ery boy is coming right out that way. Call her 
 attention to certain new things you have or cer- 
 tain specials for that day and if she does not 
 want to order anything else get the privilege of 
 sending up by the boy some new goods for her 
 
 to look at. 
 
 105 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " As long as a fellow is going to do delivering 
 he might just as well make it pay him as much 
 as possible. The delivering ought to be done 
 by one or more employes who make it their chief 
 business. For one thing it can be done by 
 cheaper help than you use inside of the store, 
 and for another, if a fellow makes a specialty 
 of delivering goods, he gets so he can do it bet- 
 ter and quicker, just like anybody does anything 
 better for making a specialty of it. 
 
 " I know of storekeepers who claim that they 
 deliver goods anywhere in town and then when 
 anyone asks them to send something up they 
 say " Ouch ! " Not in just so many words per- 
 haps, but they look it just as much as if you 
 had stepped on their toes. Now that's no way 
 to make a customer happy. You advertise 
 ' Goods delivered anywhere within a mile of the 
 store ' and then because the customer orders 
 something that you don't make much money on, 
 you act sore about it. 
 
 " It's just like offering a premium with every 
 purchase of a certain amount of goods and then 
 trying to keep the customer from buying enough 
 goods to get it. If it pays at all to deliver or to 
 give a premium, why doesn't it pay better to do 
 more of it? Why isn't the best plan to get all 
 the business of the sort that you can get ? 
 
 io6 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " I don't have but mighty little patience with 
 the fellow who gets a grouch because I take him 
 up on his own proposition, do you ? " 
 
 Barlow admitted that he did not have and he 
 went on to ask, 
 
 " How can I make this delivering bring me 
 more business ? We advertise, . ' Gk)ods deliv- 
 ered anywhere in town promptly' and we do 
 deliver promptly but I can't see that it is bringing 
 any more business." 
 
 "Your business is growing, isn't it?" asked 
 Tobias. 
 
 " Yes," admitted the other. 
 
 " Well, how the dickens do you know that all 
 or part of that growth isn't due to your deliver- 
 ing the goods ? " 
 
 " Chiefly because the most of our growth is 
 among the farmers to whom we don't deliver — 
 and then we have to give some credit to the ad- 
 vertising." 
 
 " If that's the way of it, I'll tell you why de- 
 livering doesn't get you any special advantage. 
 You don't deliver any better than your competi- 
 tors. They advertise the same thing and they 
 do it just as you do it. My wife ordered some- 
 thing from here a few days ago that she wanted 
 in a hurry. It was at ten o'clock in the morning. 
 You took the order yourself and you said it 
 
 107 
 
."i '.r 
 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 would be sent up inside of an hour. At four 
 in the afternoon it came. What do you know 
 about that ? " 
 
 Barlow blushed guiltily. " Well, you see," 
 said he, '' I forgot and — '' 
 
 " Yes, I know. Somebody must have forgot, 
 but how does that fact help a woman who has 
 gone ahead and made her plans and counted 
 on having a certain purchase in the house in an 
 hour? Now, I know of other times and of 
 other people who have found this store a little 
 short on memory and if you can explain how 
 that sort of delivering could possibly get any- 
 body any business or hold any of the old busi- 
 ness, tell me quick." 
 
 " You can't prevent some mistakes in doing 
 business," said Barlow a little sullenly. 
 
 " I see you can't. There may be some rela- 
 tion between those mistakes and the fact that 
 delivering the goods hasn't got you more trade. 
 Now, I'll tell you what I'd do if I were in your 
 place. I'd specialize on this delivery business a 
 little. And I'd do it without advertising the 
 fact to my competitors in advance. Sort o' steal 
 a march on them. 
 
 '* This is your busiest time of year. People 
 are buying a lot of things now and they often 
 take them home with them because they are 
 
 io8 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 afraid they wouldn't be delivered promptly 
 enough. They would rather have their pur- 
 chases sent up and in a good many cases they 
 would add something to them if they were going 
 to be sent. 
 
 *' I'd put on an extra boy or two for the de- 
 livering now. I'd tell every town customer who 
 comes in, whether buying anything or not, that 
 you are taking special pains with deliveries now 
 and sending goods out almost as soon as they 
 are bought and ask if there isn't something you 
 can send up. 
 
 ** I'd almost insist upon people leaving the pur- 
 chases they make here and the packages they 
 already have that have come from other stores, 
 so that you can deliver them. I'd say enough 
 about it too, so that it would leave an impression. 
 And I'd see that the goods were sent out just as 
 I said they would be. Just before Christmas I'd 
 advertise in the newspapers that you \y\\\ send 
 Christmas goods anywhere in town for examina- 
 tion, sending a messenger with them to show the 
 goods and bring them back or get the money. 
 
 " There are always a lot of people who can't 
 get out at all to do any Christmas shopping and 
 there are always some people who, on account 
 of lack of time, or on account of illness, or the 
 weather, can't get out at the last minute and 
 
 109 
 
 I 
 
 ij 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 *7 would send a clerk to the house to show them the 
 
 goods," 
 
 110 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 they want to make some last purchases. It's the 
 same way with other holidays beside Christmas 
 when people are buying more than usual in your 
 line. This little scheme will get a lot of extra 
 trade and a good deal of it is likely to come out 
 of your competitor's share." 
 
 " I wonder how it would do to work some 
 such plan in connection with a special sale," 
 suggested Barlow interestedly. 
 
 " Fine ! I worked it once myself the first 
 year we had a telephone exchange in town. I 
 put on a special February sale and I made some 
 offers that opened people's eyes too. I chopped 
 the profit all off from one or two lines. And 
 then I advertised that anyone in town who could 
 not come to the sale could have the sale brought 
 to them. I told them they could take advantage 
 of it by telephoning or sending word in any 
 way. I said I would send a clerk to the house 
 to show them the goods they wanted to see and 
 they needn't buy unless there was something 
 they wanted." 
 
 " Didn't people buy the goods that paid no 
 profit so that you didn't get anything out of the 
 trip to show them samples ? " 
 
 " My son, you're a little short-sighted. Of 
 course people telephoned for the bargain goods 
 and of course the clerk took them, but your 
 
 III 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 Uncle Dudley knew that would be the case so 
 he always sent along with the specials a few 
 things that he himself thought would interest 
 the person who was going to be interviewed. I 
 made a good many of the trips myself and the 
 rest were all made by a clerk I had who could 
 sell options on a rainbow if it had a good color. 
 
 "Of course it took a good deal of time to see 
 all these people but when the calls began to get 
 ahead of me, I just sent them a post card saying 
 that everyone asking us to call would be visited 
 in turn and even if we could not get to all of 
 them before the sale closed they would have 
 their chance at the bargains just the same. 
 
 " It took a week more than the sale time to 
 see them all — but maybe we didn't sell a lot of 
 goods to those people who let us get right inside 
 of their houses with the goods and our talk ! 
 
 " Now I'm going to advise you to do some- 
 thing that you won't do. You have to do all 
 your delivering now by a boy on foot or on a 
 bicycle, or with your one horse delivery wagon. 
 Do you know that for about what it costs you 
 for one delivery boy and bicycle — two parts of 
 the time — and for the expenses of a horse and 
 wagon and a man to take care of it and run it, 
 you could run a nice automobile delivery cart 
 that would increase your delivery radius at least 
 
 112 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 five miles and save no end of time and be the 
 finest kind of an advertisement for the progress- 
 iveness of your store? 
 
 " Of course automobile delivery wagons are 
 common enough nowadays in lots of places but 
 they aren't so common yet but that one of them 
 gives a store a prestige over the fellows who 
 haven't got one. And in a town like this where 
 nobody uses one, you could make yourself easily 
 the biggest toad in the puddle. 
 
 " Oh yes, I know what you're thinking. 
 You've had it in mind for a good while to get a 
 nice red runabout that would tear oflf about 
 seventy-five miles an hour and use it to take Miss 
 Dolly Dingle kiting around the country on Sun- 
 days where none of the other boys could get her. 
 Well, I don't find any fault with your tastes as 
 far as girls go but I find a lot of fault with your 
 judgment 
 
 *' Just take the advice of a man who has taken 
 just as much advice as he ever gave and don't go 
 to developing your speed mania until you have 
 developed your business to where it will stand it. 
 The fellow who goes ahead and develops an au- 
 tomobile taste when he's only got a velocipede 
 salary will in a little while find himself back on 
 his velocipede — if he's had enough sense to 
 keep it. 
 

 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " Until a man has his business all built up 
 and fully paid for he hasn't any business indulg- 
 ing in the game of boring with a big auger. Of 
 course a man has to have some fun and he cer- 
 tainly needs a lot of recreation just to keep him 
 fit for his work, but when he gets the idea that 
 he can't have any fun without spending a lot of 
 money to get it, he has another think coming. 
 
 " You know who Jonas Tarbottle is ? Well, 
 Jone got things coming his way pretty well and 
 he thought he had to have a trotting horse. So 
 he bought one and unfortunately it won the first 
 race he entered it in. That was enough to start 
 Jone going. It got him so excited that he was 
 giving down-weight on granulated sugar and 
 selling $40 cigars six for a quarter. 
 
 " When it got to where he had to have a better 
 trainer because he was losing all his races, he 
 put on a special sale of staples at prices 25% 
 below cost and raked in a lot of money and let go 
 of pretty near all of his stock that was any good. 
 The new trainer couldn't make his three-minute 
 nag step in the two-twenty class and so the whole 
 campaign fell down and the horse and store and 
 stock were sold by a man called the Sheriff. 
 Since then, as you're aware, Jone's been janitor 
 of the high school building and the M. E. Church 
 and his wife does hair washing and manicuring 
 
 114 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 for the folks whose husbands know enough to 
 keep their bread from falling butter-side down." 
 
 '' I see the point," said Barlow. 
 
 " Then I guess it's time for me to go to din- 
 ner," and Tobias buttoned up his coat and started 
 for the door. 
 
 When almost there he turned back and said, 
 " One thing more that I see you're thinking 
 of now. Don't try to figure on a way that you 
 can make a forty horse power automobile built 
 on what the advertisements call ' classy lines,' 
 do for a delivery car week-days and a touring 
 car Sundays. If you can make a delivery car 
 do to ride in Sundays, that will be well enough, 
 but it won't work first rate the other way." 
 
 With another semi-guilty flush Barlow- turned 
 around and looked out of the back window as his 
 friend went away. 
 
 115 
 
 
EIGHTH TALK 
 
 THE dealer's best HELP 
 
 " Got any fire in here ? " asked the Old Store- 
 keeper of Henry Foss as he breezed into his 
 cigar store one cold morning a day or so later. 
 
 "Have I got any fire?" replied Henry. 
 " Well, what do you think I am, an Esquimau ? 
 Did you ever come in here on a cold day when I 
 didn't have a good fire ? I believe in keeping my 
 store comfortably warm in winter and com- 
 fortably cool in summer." 
 
 " And you're just right about it too," said 
 Tobias. '' I can't see what some fellows are 
 thinking about to let their stores get hot and 
 fly-bitten in warm weather and cold and frost- 
 bitten in winter. You'd think that anybody who 
 has sense enough to run a store at all would 
 have sense enough to know that people will buy 
 more when they are comfortable than when 
 their fingers are too numb to count money, or 
 when they are so hot they can't pick up a postage 
 
 ii6 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 stamp and let go of it again without washing it 
 off. 
 
 " You've got the right idea. I'll say that much 
 for you. And from the looks of things I'll bet 
 it's paying you pretty well. They say you're 
 making more money than any other man in 
 Hampton." 
 
 " You don't want to believe all you hear," said 
 Henry, but he smiled like a basket of chips when 
 he said it, for what business man was there ever 
 who did not like to have people think him pros- 
 perous ? 
 
 " I've been noticing one thing lately about your 
 store and that is that you are always right on deck 
 with the latest goods advertised in the magazines. 
 Now, that's what I call enterprise — having the 
 new things that the big manufacturers are spend- 
 ing their money to make sell. I don't believe in 
 a fellow in any line of business loading up with 
 every new thing that comes along, but when a 
 good, reliable house starts a big advertising cam- 
 paign on something new they've added to their 
 line, I believe the thing for the retailer to do is 
 to get in enough of the goods so that when the 
 first demand comes it will find him ready. The 
 chap who has the goods for the first demands is 
 the one who is going to get the second sales. If 
 you wait until there is so much call for the goods 
 
 117 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 that you just have to put them in, you are too 
 late. Somebody else has got the reputation for 
 having them and you will lose the best of the 
 business, and as likely as not a few good cus- 
 tomers beside." 
 
 "Well, that's about the way IVe figured it 
 out/' said Henry. '' For a time I used to get a 
 grouch whenever I saw a big manufacturer 
 jumping out with big magazine space. It looked 
 as if he was trying to compel me to sell his goods. 
 Finally I thought, suppose he is trying to make 
 me sell them? Don't I want to sell goods? 
 Ain't that what Fm here for? What do I care 
 whose goods I sell if I make money on them? 
 And I concluded that if anyone wanted to get 
 up a demand that would make it easy for me to 
 sell anything, from Big-and-Bad chewing tobacco 
 to self-starting spring tooth harrows, Fd be 
 game and sell the goods and keep the money." 
 
 " Do you know what a merchant told me the 
 other day, Henry?'' asked Tobias. 
 
 " What was that ? " 
 
 " Well, he was talking about this same thing, 
 about the advertising in the magazines and how 
 it kept people coming in and asking for new 
 things all the time and he said, ' There's a big 
 bunch of money being spent on this advertising 
 every month and most of the goods aren't worth 
 
 Ii8 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 powder to blow 'em up/ I said to him : * Wait ! 
 You don't believe that and neither do 1/ Of 
 course not all advertised goods are top notch 
 quality, but they average pretty blamed high. A 
 concern that's going to spend ten thousand or a 
 hundred thousand dollars in getting the public 
 to try a brand of anything isn't going to give it 
 goods that it won't come back to buy again. 
 
 " The first sales of such advertised goods 
 won't bring in money enough to pay the interest 
 on the sum invested in advertising. Folks have 
 got to come back and buy more and tell their 
 friends about the goods and get them to try them 
 and this has got to go on for quite a while before 
 there will be anything in it for the manufacturer. 
 Is a man going to put trash on the market under 
 those conditions ? Not on your life ! 
 
 " The wise little retailer is going to have the 
 goods that people call for and those are to a big 
 extent going to be the advertised goods. And 
 he's going to tie up to the big advertisers and let 
 them send him store signs and other stuff to help 
 make the goods go. You're doing all this and 
 you're doing it right. No wonder you're mak- 
 ing money/' 
 
 " Well, I am making a little money,'* admitted 
 Henry, " but I want to make more and I want to 
 know how to do it. Perhaps you can tell me." 
 
 119 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " I can tell you how you can find out," said 
 Tobias. " I don't know an awful lot about your 
 particular line but FlI tell you how any business 
 man can find out how to make good and what 
 will help him to do it." 
 
 " I'm listening pretty hard for that kind of in- 
 formation/' Henry said as he hitched his chair 
 over toward where the Old Storekeeper had sat 
 down behind the stove. 
 
 " There isn't any secret about it," Tobias went 
 on. " When you went to school in the little old 
 red schoolhouse over on Pine Brook they set 
 you at studying your arithmetic to learn how to 
 add and subtract, and they set you at the geog- 
 raphy to learn where places were. Whatever 
 you wanted to learn, they gave you a book that 
 told all about that subject and you learned it out 
 of the book. In those days we thought that if 
 we wanted to know about almost anything, the 
 place to find out was in some book or paper 
 where it was all written up by somebody who 
 knew. 
 
 "After we got out of school and began to 
 learn a few things by experience, a lot of us got 
 the notion that we could learn everything with- 
 out any help, and I'm not sure but that a good 
 many of us got another notion that we knew so 
 much that there wasn't anything of any conse- 
 
 I20 
 
 
 , More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 quence left worth learning. Anyway nine mer- 
 chants in ten never think of trying to learn more 
 about their business by studying about it in books 
 and papers. 
 
 " Business isn't a matter of luck, and it isn't a 
 game that's run on a kind of guess-work basis. 
 It's subject to certain rules and it's perfectly 
 foolish for a man to think that he's born with 
 all those rules in his head, or that he can pick 
 them up quicker or better for himself than he 
 can learn them out of a book written by some 
 one who has already learned them. Who would 
 ever think of trying to learn the rule of three by 
 experimenting with figures? Business is a lot 
 more complicated than arithmetic or geography 
 or spelling. It's as complicated as all of them, 
 and then some. There isn't any one text book 
 that covers the whole of it. It's too big a sub- 
 ject. A fellow has to dig into a lot of different 
 books to get what he wants. He finds some 
 things in one, some in another, and more yet in 
 the trade journals. 
 
 " And what I'm getting at in all this talk is 
 that the trade journal is the place where a man 
 ought to go for information about how to develop 
 his business, how to get more customers, how- 
 to make better profits. The trade journal is the 
 text book of the business. There are plenty of 
 
 121 
 
 
 i' 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 it 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 I 
 
 A 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 these trade papers in every line and the man who 
 is in business ought to have a good one covering 
 every line of goods that he handles. Just taking 
 one paper doesn't help enough. One is good but 
 more are better. You don't want to look for 
 very much results from a homeopathic treatment 
 of trade journals. 
 
 "There was a time when men bought stores 
 and stocked them with goods, sold the goods 
 and put the money into a sliding box they called 
 a money drawer and took it out again as they 
 needed it for cigars or family expenses or to 
 buy more goods with. They kept this up till 
 they were finally closed out by death or the sher- 
 iff. 
 
 " People don't do business that way any more. 
 They have a system. They have studied how to 
 do business and they have learned better ways 
 of handling all kinds of transactions. Now, 
 there was old Josey Gk>rdon who kept the market 
 on the corner of Greene street before you can 
 remember. He sold a ham one day and forgot 
 to charge it. When it came time to close up at 
 night he remembered selling the ham but he 
 couldn't for the life of him remember who 
 bought it. So he charged it up to everybody 
 who'd had anything charged that day and they 
 all paid for it but one man and he skipped with- 
 
 122 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 out paying his bill at all. That proves there's 
 money in a credit business, but it proves too that 
 a man needs to have a system that will keep him 
 from neglecting charges and other things. And 
 the place to learn about systems and about every 
 other thing that helps business is right in the 
 pages of the trade journals. 
 
 " Why, Henry, ten dollars a year invested in 
 trade journal subscriptions will keep a man in 
 touch with the very latest in business methods 
 all along the line and it will keep him posted on 
 the newest goods of every kind he sells and it 
 will bring him in returns that will be a good 
 many times the ten dollars. 
 
 " IVe picked up more live sellers from the 
 trade papers and their advertising pages than I 
 ever got from the jobbers' salesmen who used to 
 call on me. A traveling man is all right. I like 
 them and I believe in treating them right, but I 
 believe they are working for their own houses 
 and they miss a lot of things that the trade pa- 
 pers tell about and that other houses carry. 
 
 " The man who tries to hitch along without 
 reading anything about what's going on outside 
 in his lines of goods is pretty sure to develop 
 into a Grandfather Man, a man who's satisfied to 
 run things the way his father and his grand- 
 father ran them before him. That's a nice, 
 
 123 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 quiet, peaceful way of doing business but it won't 
 get you very far along. 
 
 * " A man can't stand still. It he isn't growing 
 into a better business man, he's dropping back 
 into being a poorer one. What do you think 
 of a doctor or a lawyer who starts in to practice 
 and gives up studying his profession and depends 
 upon his own experiences to keep him up to the 
 times? You think he's not of much account, 
 don't you ? There can't any doctor in that class 
 cut out my vermiform appendix. No sir. 
 When I want first class medical advice I'm going 
 to a doctor who gets the medical journals and 
 reads them. 
 
 " That last is a pretty important part of it too. 
 It isn't going to help a man's business much to 
 subscribe for a lot of trade journals and then 
 run through them and read the jokes and look 
 at the pictures and drop them into the waste 
 basket. Handling trade journals that way 
 would help a merchant's business just about as 
 much as buying a bottle of liniment and rubbing 
 the wrapper on his back would help his rheuma- 
 tism. You've got to get out what's in the bottle, 
 what's in the journal, or it won't do you a bit 
 of good. Show me a man's trade journals after 
 they've been in his store a month and I'll tell you 
 what kind of a business man he is. 
 
 124 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " Of course all these trade journals are pub- 
 lished to make money, but I don't believe that 
 any of them can make much money unless they 
 are a success at showing their readers how to 
 make it. A man will perhaps subscribe for a 
 trade paper for one year without knowing that 
 it's any good, but they won't catch him the next 
 year. After he's wise to its contents, if it hasn't 
 made good with him, back into the post office it 
 goes, marked ' Refused.' I've cut off enough of 
 them myself because they weren't helping me. 
 But the poor ones are pretty well weeded out 
 now. They've gone to the magazine graveyard 
 where they belong. 
 
 " You don't want to stop with what informa- 
 tion you can get out of the trade journal pages. 
 You want to feel free to write to the editor 
 about anything. If you want information about 
 anything that you can't locate anywhere else, 
 write to the editor of a trade journal and I'll 
 bet you'll get what you're after. These trade 
 journal fellows don't know everything them- 
 selves, but I've noticed that any information that 
 they haven't got on tap they can get or can tell 
 you where you can get it. I never saw one of 
 them stuck yet. 
 
 " The trade journal gets a man closer to the 
 market. Most of us live a good ways from the 
 
 125 
 
|i 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 big markets, from the centers where the new 
 goods are coming out and from where the styles 
 are set. Of course the new things get around 
 to us after a while by the regular route but some- 
 times they come too late to be of much use. The 
 mail order buyers in town beat us to it. They 
 see the new things advertised in the city dailies 
 and send for them and by the time our stock 
 comes, everyone is supplied. There isn't any 
 need of a man being so far behind in getting the 
 late goods, because he can learn about them in 
 the trade journals just as soon as they are in the 
 market. 
 
 " What a man can't find in the reading pages 
 of a first class trade journal he can find in the 
 advertising pages, and I'm not at all sure that 
 they aren't the best pages anyway. If I couldn't 
 have but part of some of the trade maga- 
 zines I know of, I'd choose the advertising part. 
 And I wouldn't stop with choosing it either. Fd 
 use it. I'd sit down every time a new number 
 came and I'd go right through it and answer 
 every advertisement of goods that there was any 
 possibility of my selling. Of course this would 
 result in a lot of information that I might not 
 care for, but if I got just one good and profitable 
 line or item out of the lot, it would pay me well. 
 
 126 
 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 One good line may make the difference between 
 the success and the failure of a store. 
 
 "You don't find any fake advertisers in the 
 pages of a good trade journal now any more than 
 you do in any high class magazine. Every adver- 
 tisement is worth noticing and most of them are 
 worth answering. 
 
 "You asked me how you could make more 
 money and I told you that I would tell you where 
 you could find out how. Well, I haven't been 
 very far off from the track any of the time. 
 You can find out from the trade journals how 
 to make more money and how to do more busi- 
 ness. The journals that you can get nowadays 
 are full of stuff written by the best men in the 
 business in the country and those fellows are 
 telling you in every issue how you can improve 
 your business condition and develop more trade. 
 They know what they're talking about. You 
 can get the best brains in your line of business 
 all working for you for a few dollars every year. 
 The trade journal is the dealer's best help. 
 
 " Every merchant ought to clip out of his trade 
 journals all the items of interest in them and 
 he ought to put these clippings into scrap books 
 or into alphabetical files. A good way is to have 
 a lot of big envelopes numbered from * i ' up, 
 
 127 
 
 i 
 
 ii- 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 Every merchant ought to put these clippings into scrap 
 
 books'' 
 
 128 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 and in an indexed memorandum bcMDk, list under 
 ' A ' the subjects like Advertising, Advertise- 
 ment Writing, Awnings, and anything else of 
 interest to the management of the store and be- 
 ginning with A, and give the number of the file 
 where you keep clippings on those subjects. 
 The same plan should be followed right through 
 the alphabet. Of course the names of the sub- 
 jects covered by the contents should be on the 
 envelopes too. 
 
 " With a set of clippings like this growing big- 
 ger all the time, a man would always Jiave a lot 
 of good ideas to turn to on any subject he was in- 
 terested in. This plan of filing the clippings 
 under alphabetical headings is better than a scrap 
 book, unless you want to make a whole set of 
 scrap books, one covering each subject. 
 
 " Ideas that you don't need just now will come 
 in handy later and there's plenty of matter 
 printed in the trade papers that never gets printed 
 anywhere else and that's mighty well worth sav- 
 ing too. 
 
 *' You don't want to stop with reading the 
 trade papers yourself. You want everybody 
 connected with the store to read them. The 
 more a clerk learns about the business and the 
 faster he learns it, the more he will be worth to 
 the store. I believe that it pays a man to sub- ' 
 
 129 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 scribe for a good trade journal to be sent right 
 to the home address of his clerk, of each of them 
 if he has more than one. Then the young man 
 or the girl will get time to read it and develop 
 all the more interest in the business in general 
 and in your business in particular. 
 
 " Well, Henry, I don't want to tire you all out 
 with this trade journal talk. Fm kind of a crank 
 on the subject. Even if I'm not in business any 
 longer myself I take all the trade journals I can 
 find in the lines I used to sell and I read them 
 too. They suit me better than some of these 
 pretty girl near-fiction magazines that give a fel- 
 low the mental indigestion once a month. 
 
 " You try subscribing for the journals in your 
 line and if you can't find out which are the good 
 ones, call on me and I'll pick them out for you. 
 I'm going home now and read a batch that came 
 yesterday. Give me a ' quarter's ' worth of 
 those Royal Kings and I'll beat it." 
 
 Tobias was no sooner out of sight than Henry 
 sat down to write for sample copies of the jour- 
 nals he knew about. He knew that the Old 
 Storekeeper was pretty nearly the best judge of 
 what would help a man get business and he pro- 
 posed to follow the advice he had received. 
 
 130 
 
 NINTH TALK 
 
 THE TRAVELING MAN 
 
 The health of the Old Storekeeper's wife made 
 it necessary for him to spend the winter in the 
 south that year and as he left very soon after the 
 last talk with Barlow, he did not have a chance 
 to see him again for more than a few minutes at 
 a time before going. 
 
 The leaves were just coming out green again 
 when Tobias came back to Hampton and he lost 
 no time the morning after his arrival in getting 
 down town to see what changes had taken place 
 in his absence and to shake hands with his old 
 friends. 
 
 There was not a more popular man in town 
 than Tobias Jenkins. He had been asked two or 
 three times, once at least by each political party, 
 to run for county sheriff and had refused, which 
 left him more friends than he would have had 
 if he had run, whatever the result of the contest 
 might have been. 
 
 One of the first things he noticed was the fact 
 
 131 
 
 I 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 \A 
 
 14 
 
 "He noticed a shiny automobile delivery car.' 
 
 132 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 that Larry Benjamin's windows were dirty and 
 the displays in them untidy. That set him think- 
 ing. 
 
 The next thing he noticed was a shiny automo- 
 bile deHvery car scooting up the street with 
 '' Barlow's " in big red letters on the side. 
 
 "Well, well, well," he ejaculated under his 
 breath. "This certainly does look as if John 
 had things coming his way." 
 
 He had not quite reached Barlow's store when 
 he met the proprietor coming up the street. As 
 soon as the latter saw Tobias, he quickened his 
 steps and came up to him with his hand out- 
 stretched and greeted him cordially, though no 
 more so than Tobias greeted his successor. All 
 of the Old Storekeeper's rough and ready advice, 
 though much of it was not very pleasant to hear 
 or take, had not lessened Barlow's liking for him 
 in any degree. 
 
 " I certainly am glad to see you back again," 
 said the younger man. " It has been a mighty 
 long and cold winter and you didn't make any 
 mistake getting away from it. How's Mrs Ten- 
 kins ? " 
 
 "Oh, she's a hundred per cent, better. I'm 
 pretty darned glad to be back myself. No going 
 South for mine. Good old snow suits me in the 
 winter time. Say, what on earth have you been 
 
 133 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 doing to Larry Benjamin? And where did you 
 get that automobile ? It is a good thing for me 
 to go out of town once in a while I guess." 
 
 " Well, Mr. Jenkins, I must say that it looks as 
 if things were coming my way. Come along up 
 to the house while I take up this mail for mother 
 and ril tell you the story of my life." 
 
 They turned and went up the street together 
 arm in arm like a couple of old cronies. On the 
 way Barlow told about what he had done to 
 boom his business during the winter. 
 
 He had taken the advice of Tobias and bought 
 a delivery car which he had run all winter with 
 the exception of a few times when there was too 
 much snow. He had extended his free delivery 
 service to a radius of five miles from the store 
 and by this means had cornered all the trade of 
 the farmers living inside of that distance. It 
 had been necessary to assist the auto at times 
 with a bicycle delivery by the youngest clerk but 
 the expense had proved no more than his previ- 
 ous delivery expense and the results in gain in 
 business alone had paid for the car. 
 
 His clerks had all felt as if the store had ad- 
 vanced in class and they had developed into 
 higher class help and better dressed and better 
 acting people. So much for the influence of a 
 single improvement. 
 
 134 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 And most important of all he had won the 
 love of Dolly Dingle and told Tobias, with all the 
 satisfaction of an accepted lover, that they were 
 going to be married in the fall. 
 
 Tobias received all this news with a cordial 
 interest, and extended congratulations enthusi- 
 astically. When at last he had the whole story, 
 he said, 
 
 " This has been your busy winter all right, 
 hasn't it? I hope you won't get the idea that 
 because things are coming your way you can sit 
 down and watch 'em come. The more they 
 come, the more you want to keep after 'em." 
 
 " I'm going to try not to let up on it a bit. 
 Fve decided not to take any vacation this sum- 
 mer. Instead I'm going to take half days off at 
 a time and use them working on our place, get- 
 ting the garden and yard looking better." 
 
 " You are certainly getting domestic with a 
 vengeance," said Tobias. " I guess I'll go in and 
 look at your garden now." 
 
 " It's just being worked. I'm going to put in 
 an hour there this morning and if you'll come 
 along I'll show you a good imitation of a man 
 working." 
 
 The two went out through to the garden in ,. 
 the rear of Barlow's home and just as Tobias 
 
 135 
 
 :ii 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 had settled down on a comfortable bench and the 
 younger man had got his coat off one of the 
 clerks came in on a bicycle and called to his em- 
 ployer, "There's a traveling man down at the 
 store to see you. He says he's got a new line of 
 fall dress goods." 
 
 "Tell him there's nothing doing," shouted 
 Barlow and went on getting out his tools. 
 
 The clerk turned and went back. Tobias sat 
 and smoked in silence while Barlow raked 
 away at a lettuce bed, getting ready to put in 
 the seed. 
 
 Finally he stopped and exclaimed, 
 
 " That fellow must have had his nerve rieht 
 with him ! " ^ 
 
 " You mean the drummer ? " 
 Yes, of course. A fellow can't get far 
 enough away from his store so that one of those 
 fellows won't be on his track. I wouldn't be 
 surprised if that chap would be up here to try 
 and drag me down there to see his fall goods yet. 
 I'm not in any hurry to see fall goods as I know 
 of." 
 
 " Do you know whose line this is ? " 
 
 " No, and I don't care. There's plenty of 
 
 lines of goods in the market. There can't any 
 
 one house claim to have them all." 
 
 136 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " I suppose, though, there is a best house," said 
 Tobias quietly. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know as any one house can be 
 better than all the rest." 
 
 " I think that very likely if you could know 
 all about all the houses that cover this territory 
 you would find that some one house is really 
 better than any of the others, but aside from 
 that you will admit that some houses have lines 
 that are ahead of similar lines in other houses. 
 Almost any house has some pretty good advan- 
 tages to offer in specialties." 
 
 '' Oh yes," Barlow admitted, " the woods are 
 full of good houses." 
 
 "They are hardly as plenty as that. I don't 
 believe you could count up a very large number 
 that you want to buy from. What sticks me is 
 how you know that you don't want any of this 
 man's goods. You didn't even ask what house 
 he represented. 
 
 " How do you know that he hasn't got just 
 exactly what you want in fall stuff? He may 
 have some of the best selling goods. He may 
 have some goods that you could use for leaders 
 to outsell the other stores. There's no limit to 
 the things he might have — and you didn't even 
 ask who he was." 
 
 137 
 
 I 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " I know what I want and I don't believe any 
 traveling man can tell me more about my busi- 
 ness than I know," and Barlow began digging 
 viciously in the lettuce bed. 
 
 " I don't know how much you know, but I 
 never yet found any one man who knew it all, 
 though I've found lots of them that thought they 
 did. And you may be surprised to know that 
 I'm willing to bet money that this drummer, I 
 don't know who he is either, can tell you some 
 things about your business that you don't know.'* 
 
 " What, for instance ? " 
 
 " For one thing, he knows what kinds of goods 
 you are going to have the most demand for the 
 coming fall. His house isn't going ahead and 
 making up big quantities of certain goods with- 
 out some reason for thinking they are going to 
 sell. You yourself won't know, unless you find 
 out from some outside source, what's going to 
 sell except by waiting to see what the women of 
 the town come in and ask for. I say ' women,' 
 because they are the makers of ' best sellers.' 
 
 " And then, too, this drummer no doubt knows 
 something about what the other stores in Hamp- 
 ton are doing or planning to do. Just as like as 
 not he was saving something pretty good to show 
 you because he has heard that you are doing the 
 best business here, and more than likely he is 
 
 138 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 now on his way to Larry Benjamin's to give him 
 the chance that you threw away. 
 
 " Styles are not made or started in Hampton. 
 You can't set a style on anything and even Miss 
 Dolly Dingle can't. The style has got to come 
 from outside and who's going to bring it? 
 
 " You may foot the bill but somebody else has 
 got to tell you what to buy. Suppose all the 
 new goods for next fall were to be spread out 
 before you without anyone to say a word about 
 any of them and you were allowed to go ahead 
 and pick out your own line. A pretty lot of 
 stickers you'd land! 
 
 " No sir, there can't any man go ahead with- 
 out looking to right or left or paying any atten- 
 tion to anyone unless he happens to feel just like 
 it, and get very far. You can't act that way with 
 people you want to have buy goods from you, 
 and you can't act that way with people who want 
 to sell you goods. 
 
 " Of course a salesman will stand for a certain 
 amount of rudeness just because he needs the 
 money but you know how you feel about giving 
 any special bargains or privileges to a customer 
 who comes in and walks over you rough-shod or 
 who treats you like a necessary evil." 
 
 " What do you want me to do ? " asked Bar- 
 low a little sarcastically, " Shall I run right down 
 
 139 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 to the store and get down on my knees and beg 
 this traveling man to be so kind as to let me buy 
 something from him ? " 
 
 '* No, because you would be humbling yourself 
 needlessly. He probably wouldn't sell to you 
 now anyway. But I'd turn over a new leaf and 
 see if I couldn't treat other people who are selling 
 goods at least as well as you get treated your- 
 self. 
 
 '' There was a time perhaps when drummers 
 were a nuisance. They would come in and if 
 the merchant treated them with any consideration 
 at all they would load him up to the ears with 
 anything he would let them send. They were 
 sharpers in many cases but they had to be because 
 the merchants in those times were sharpers too. 
 But there's a different standard today for both 
 sides of the deal. The traveling man who is 
 going to make good has to make a good impres- 
 sion first. Then he has to sell square goods and 
 treat the buyer right. 
 
 " Of course there are still some drummers who 
 will stuff your order and who will insist upon 
 selling you whether you want to buy or not and 
 who are regular old-fashioned bores. But 
 there's less and less of 'em. I don't ask you to 
 waste time on a drummer or to visit with one 
 when you haven't the time. And I'd sit on one 
 
 140 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 that can't act like a gentleman. But you can't 
 tell how to treat one until he has had his chance 
 with you. 
 
 " When a man comes in and says he is from 
 So-and-so and has a line of fall samples he would 
 like to show you, treat him like a white man. If 
 you want to visit with him, all well and good, but 
 if you don't, and it isn't profitable to spend much 
 time in aimless visiting, ask him what line he 
 carries. Appoint a time when you will look 
 over the goods and be ready at that time. Give 
 him a chance to say his say about the goods. 
 Hold him down to business as close as 3^ou want 
 to and keep him going if your time is short. 
 
 "If you can't take time to look at them, ask 
 him to excuse you and if you are polite about it 
 and sincere he has no kick coming and you are 
 justified in ignoring him if he gets mad. If you 
 don't want to buy after seeing the goods, say so 
 and excuse yourself. Any time when a drummer 
 gets peevish while being treated politely and 
 fairly, you cease to be under any obligations to 
 extend him any further courtesies. Let him 
 alone then. 
 
 "These persistent, insistent bores are getting 
 scarcer and scarcer and most travelers are willing 
 to admit that a merchant knows whether he 
 wants to buy or not after seeing the goods or 
 
 141 
 
 h\ 
 
Ivl 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 hearing the story about the proposition. Of 
 course you know how to run your own business. 
 I'm not saying you don't. I'm only calling your 
 attention to the fact that you can always learn 
 from a good traveling man." 
 
 "Oh, yes, of course," admitted Barlow. 
 " They know a good deal about what's what but 
 there are some that I can't bear at all." 
 
 " Well, there are some girls that you can't bear 
 at all, but that hasn't kept you from liking one 
 pretty well, I notice. You can't afford to get 
 sore on a whole class of people just because some 
 of the members of that class are crooked. 
 What would you think of a woman who wouldn't 
 buy anything from any merchant in Hampton 
 just because she found that one of the local mer- 
 chants was crooked ? " 
 
 " That's different." 
 
 ''No, it ain't different either. It's the same 
 darned idea. You're nothing but a drummer 
 yourself only you do all your drumming right 
 here in one place instead of going about the 
 
 country." 
 
 " I'll be good," said Barlow, resting on his hoe. 
 " There's one important item of news that I for- 
 got to tell you. There's going to be a new store 
 in town. A fellow from nobody knows where 
 has bought out Tim Johnson's little shop and 
 
 142 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 he's going to occupy that whole building and 
 open the same sort of a store I'm running." 
 
 Tobias gave an exclamatory whistle. " That is 
 news," said he. " I wouldn't wonder if he might 
 give you a run for your money. When is he 
 going to open ? '* 
 
 " Don't know. It was just in the paper last 
 week that Mr. J. C. Flint would open a store in 
 the Tim Johnson stand in a few weeks, and since 
 then the carpenters have been pretty busy at work 
 there, though they keep the curtains down and 
 their mouths shut about what they're doing." 
 
 " He's a foxy fellow, isn't he ? He's going to 
 have the public's curiosity aroused anyway, and 
 that's what makes an opening of a new store a 
 success. Well, what're you going to do to offset 
 his efforts ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't believe he can get my trade away 
 from me. I've been here long enough to have a 
 hold on the people and I'll just keep up a good 
 line of advertising and while he'll get the floaters 
 and 'most everyone will drop in there once in a 
 while, but they'll come back to the old reliable." 
 
 " I hope you're a good prophet, my boy, but 
 it wouldn't surprise me any if this Mr. Flint would 
 have you scared before he gets through with you. 
 And what surprises me is that you would turn 
 away a drummer the way you did when there's a 
 
 143 
 

 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 new store getting ready to start. Why, say, you 
 need to be on the lookout for chances to buy 
 right and to get new things more than ever be- 
 fore. You need that drummer a good deal more 
 than he needs vou." 
 
 It was evident that Barlow thought the Old 
 Storekeeper over-estimated the dangers of the 
 situation. He himself felt secure in his position 
 and had no idea of paying any special attention to 
 the newcomer. On this account he was not wor- 
 rying over how he might treat a traveling man 
 or what the result of the new competition might 
 turn out to be. 
 
 In this he certainly did make a mistake because 
 it does not matter what a new competitor may 
 amount to, as long as there is an element of un- 
 certainty. His plans should be met with your 
 plans. His plans for getting business should be 
 met with plans for holding business. Any new 
 store is sure to develop more or less trade which 
 must come from the old stores. It is up to the 
 old stores to get busy if they expect to hold their 
 own. 
 
 At last Barlow finished his lettuce bed and he 
 and Tobias went downtown but the matter of the 
 new store was not referred to again that day. 
 
 144 
 
 TENTH TALK 
 
 A NEW COMPETITOR OPENS 
 
 Charley Morrison had just returned from din- 
 ner, and as business was pretty slow that day he 
 sat by his office desk, though he did not boast an 
 office, smoking a good cigar and waiting for 
 either a customer or a visitor. 
 
 Although the drug business had not amassed 
 him any fortune, it is probable that he was more 
 glad to see Tobias Jenkins come in for a visit 
 than he would have been to see someone come in 
 with a prescription that would have spoiled the 
 enjoyment of his smoke. 
 
 "Hello, Tobias," he greeted the Old Store- 
 keeper. " Never mind buying a cigar. Come 
 over and sit down here and take one on the house. 
 I don't feel like waiting on customers just now." 
 
 " The first you know," said Tob^'ss, " you'll be 
 in the same boat as Joel Jenks was when he was 
 running the baseball team last summer. It kept 
 him so busy writing for players and telephoning 
 for games that nobody could ever get waited on 
 
 145 
 
 

 Ml' 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 in his store, and one day Mrs. Smith went in and 
 after she had waited till he finished a telephone 
 conversation about some game or other and came 
 out behind the counter, she said, ' I'm sorry to 
 bother you, Mr. Jenks, but I wanted to get some 
 spool cotton/ 
 
 " Joel didn't say anything, but he sold her what 
 she wanted and went back and sat down to think 
 it over. He told me afterward that he thought 
 to himself, ' By George, when it gets to where 
 my customers have to apologize for asking me 
 to sell 'em goods I'd better cut out some of this 
 outside business and 'tend to my own a little 
 closer.' He resigned his baseball job right then 
 and there once and for all." 
 
 "I'm not in the baseball business," said the 
 druggist. "In my case it's just plain laziness. 
 How's this new store getting along? I wonder if 
 this J. C. Flint fellow is going to get Barlow's 
 trade away from him ? " 
 
 " No, I don't believe so ; but between you and 
 me, Charley, he's going to give him a good scare 
 before he gets through with it. Barlow's all 
 right and he's got a good hold on his trade, but 
 he doesn't realize that a man can't let a live com- 
 petitor like Flint open up a brand new store right 
 in his own line and just a few doors away and 
 
 146 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 expect to keep all his business without doing 
 something extra to hold it. 
 
 " Flint hasn't got much money but he's a 
 hustler. If Barlow lets him get a good start he 
 may get away from him. You know how it was 
 when the boys got up that bicycle race last Fourth 
 of July and gave old Peter Brown ten minutes 
 start just for a joke? Peter fooled 'em and 
 walked off with the prize. You don't want to 
 give anybody any more start on you in a race for 
 trade than you absolutely have to. It's hard 
 enough in these days of competition to get your 
 share of the business when you start out on even 
 terms with the rest. 
 
 " Sometimes these dark horses show a lot more 
 speed than anybody thought they could. That's 
 where this early closing plan falls down a good 
 many times. The merchants that think they are 
 the whole show in town agree to shut up at six 
 o'clock every night but Saturday. The little fel- 
 low that has just started in around the corner 
 won't go into the pool and they think it doesn't 
 make any difference. But by and by they wake 
 up and find that he's been selling evenings to 
 their customers and treating them so well that 
 they're going there daytimes too." 
 
 " Flint has made his store look pretty nice on 
 
 147 
 
^_ 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 *^Made his store look pretty nice on the outside," 
 
 148 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 the outside. It doesn't look much like it used 
 to before he moved in there." 
 
 " Yes," continued Tobias, " and that isn't all. 
 He's made it look pretty nice on the inside too. 
 First he tore out a lot of partitions and made it 
 look twice as big as it was, and by using mirrors 
 and putting in some more windows he made it 
 look pretty near twice as big as it is. It pays to 
 make a store look big instead of small and fussy 
 like a two-for-a-cent millinery shop. I don't 
 mean that a big and empty store looks better than 
 a small and full one. It doesn't. But a man 
 ought to make his store look as big as he can 
 without having it look bare in spots like a dog 
 with the mange. You want a nice coating of 
 goods over all the shelves and places where goods 
 are supposed to be." 
 
 " Flint has done that alright." 
 
 " Yes, Flint has been pretty foxy that way. I 
 don't believe he has a very big stock but he's got 
 it spread out. There are goods everywhere you 
 look, unless some of them are dummies and that 
 doesn't make any great difference because every- 
 body thinks they're goods. Instead of piling 
 away a lot of goods in the back room and giving 
 one item one space on the shelf, he gives that 
 item a whole shelf and makes his stock go as far 
 as he. can." 
 
 149 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 *' He's a good advertiser too," interjected Mor- 
 rison. 
 
 "You bet he's a good advertiser, and that's 
 what makes these new fellows dangerous to the 
 man who thinks he's got it all coming his way. 
 There are a lot of merchants who have inherited 
 or bought a store with a good steady trade, and 
 because they haven't had much competition to 
 fight, they think that their customers belong to 
 'em by divine right. They advertise in a con- 
 servative, quiet kind of way, and as long as no 
 real live advertiser comes along they're all right. 
 But some day along comes Johnny Live Wire 
 and opens a store, and while the established chap 
 is laughing at him he's getting busy with the 
 advertising and pulling the business his way. 
 
 "That's what's likely to happen to Barlow. 
 He's too cocksure. He's too darned certain that 
 he bought his customers when he bought the store 
 from me. Of course he's held 'em pretty well 
 because nobody's been going after 'em much, but 
 here's where things change. I didn't deliver 
 those customers to him. They just stayed with 
 him because they happened to feel like it. The 
 question is now how much longer are they going 
 to feel like it? I haven't said anything to Bar- 
 low. I'm not going to butt in. 
 
 " Flint is certainly going about it in the right 
 
 150 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 way. He hasn't started in by telling a lot of 
 wonderful things that he's going to do, or by 
 saying that he's going to give people the biggest 
 bargains they ever got. No sir, he's just show- 
 ing 'em by advertising what he can do for 'em 
 right now. What you tell folks you're going to 
 do doesn't get you anything. It's what you really 
 do do that makes the hit. 
 
 " Now Flint's making fine use of every window 
 to show good bargains and first-class values. 
 When a new store starts up people are looking 
 for two things there. They are looking for new 
 goods, things they couldn't buy at any of the older 
 stores; and they're looking for better prices on 
 the lines of goods they've been buying. Of 
 course other features appeal to them. A better 
 line of some kind of goods than anybody ever 
 kept in town before makes them sit up and take 
 notice. Better service, more agreeable clerks, 
 quicker delivery, pleasanter store ; all these things 
 count, but they are out looking for those two first 
 advantages. 
 
 " I'll bet you that Flint knows that. I'll bet 
 you that Barlow never thought of it in just that 
 way. But I'll tell you where Flint has made a big 
 mistake. He's tried to get clerks away from the 
 other stores, and he succeeded in getting some 
 of them too. In that way and in some other 
 
 151 
 
 I 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 ways he has gone right ahead and made the mer- 
 chants already in business here mad at him. 
 
 "Now take your own case, Charley. Flint 
 doesn't handle any of your kind of goods, but I'll 
 bet a hat that you don't think much of him, and 
 I'll bet another that you don't know just why/' 
 
 " No, I don't seem to take to him any, and he 
 never did anything to me either. He even comes 
 in here and buys what drugs and stuff in my line 
 he wants, but I don't warm up to him any." 
 
 " Well, this is the reason for that. He's abso- 
 lutely cold blooded. He thinks that business is 
 business, that he can come into Hampton and 
 open a store and by using the good ideas and 
 good sense I've given him credit for, he can get 
 the trade. Of course that's true to a certain ex- 
 tent. 
 
 '' Business is business, but I don't believe that 
 a man can go ahead on the basis of ' Friendship 
 ceases when it comes to a matter of dollars and 
 cents.' If you do business in a town you've got 
 to associate with the people there, and you've got 
 to be a part of them and a booster for the town. 
 If you are one of the merchants in a town you've 
 got to mingle with the others and help them work 
 for the general good. You can't expect to be a 
 high private and yet have everybody willing to 
 
 152 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 spend their money in your store and for your 
 benefit. 
 
 "If you think that you can have a rule outside 
 of the store of every man for himself and the 
 devil take the hindmost, and a rule inside of it 
 of everybody for you, you are going to be fooled 
 badly. 
 
 " Flint ought to have called on pretty nearly 
 every merchant in town as soon as he could, and 
 just introduced himself and said that he'd come 
 here to go into business and that even if he was 
 to be a competitor he would try to be a friendly 
 one and hoped that he could help make the town 
 a better business place. If he'd started right out 
 on a handshaking expedition and got in right all 
 along the line he would have found Hampton a 
 lot better place to live in and no worse place to 
 do business in. Nobody would have thought he 
 was fresh and a lot of folks that are now against 
 him would then have been strong for him. 
 
 " I expect that the man's a cold blooded fellow 
 naturally. He is selfish and he isn't interested 
 in anybody but himself. But that needn't have 
 made him so foolish that he couldn't see that 
 he was making a bad break to try to steal away 
 other merchant's clerks. Darn a man that will 
 try to get under his competitor's belt that way! 
 
 153 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 If a clerk from some other store comes and asks 
 you for a job, that puts the responsibility on him 
 and it may be all right to take him. But even 
 then I wouldn't take a competitor's clerk away 
 at the expense of making that competitor mad 
 about it. A fellow can't afford to rile up his 
 competitors unnecessarily. It makes them work 
 a lot harder to hold their trade and get more. 
 The merchants in a town make up a kind of busi- 
 ness family, and like any other family it's a good 
 deal better to get along without scraps and jars. 
 
 " Flint doesn't see you when he meets you on 
 the street. He isn't near-sighted either. Maybe 
 he's bashful or diffident. I don't know. But 
 whatever it is that makes him that way, it's a 
 fault. He comes in here and buys a few things 
 from you and says it's a nice day, but you don't 
 feel that he cares whether he knows your name 
 or not and the fact that he tries to make up 
 for it when you go into his store doesn't make it 
 any better. 
 
 ^ " I like to do business with a pleasant, cordial 
 kind of man, no matter whether I'm buying or 
 selling. If I go into a store where everybody 
 is cheerful arid where the clerks aren't afraid 
 to smile and where they don't wait for me to 
 insist upon it before they'll say good morning, 
 I am pretty apt to buy more than in a store 
 
 154 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 where everybody looks as if there'd been a death 
 in the family that morning. Maybe you don't 
 care so much about people being cheerful as I 
 do, but by George I can't stand a solemn 
 store ! " 
 
 " Nor I," said Morrison. " I believe this 
 grouch business is all a matter of habit anyway. ' 
 Why, I had a clerk once who never was known 
 to smile on his job. People used to ask me if he 
 was consumptive, or if he had lost a relative, or 
 what was the matter. I'd try to excuse him be- 
 cause a man's got to stand up for the clerks in 
 his store, but it got to be pretty hard work. I'd 
 try to cheer him up. I'd praise some of his 
 work, or I'd give him a half day extra to go to 
 a ball game. No matter what he did or where 
 he went, no matter how good a time he had, 
 he'd come back with that same funeral face, 
 until I finally told him he'd have to try it on 
 someone else, that I was getting to where I 
 looked like him and my wife wouldn't stand 
 for it." 
 
 " Yes, it is a habit, Charley. It's a habit of 
 mind. A man gets to thinking of his troubles if 
 he has any and if he hasn't any he will worry 
 about what he might have and pretty soon it 
 shows in his face and the longer he lets himself 
 run along like that the worse he gets and the 
 
 155 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 harder it's going to be for him to shake the 
 habit. 
 
 " Once while I was in the store things were 
 going kind o' bad for me and I saw I was get- 
 ting terrible solemn. My wife mentioned it 
 first. Then I watched myself and I saw that I 
 never seemed to be really cheerful, so I thought 
 it over, and about then I read somewhere that 
 the way to get rid of any kind of a fault isn't 
 to keep thinking ' don't do this/ but to think of 
 just the opposite and think * do do this.' Well, 
 I could see that meant that instead of thinking 
 'don't be so cussed grouchy,' I ought to be 
 thinking 'Cheer up!' And in that same piece 
 I'd read, it said the best way to start off cheer- 
 ful was to tell a funny story at the breakfast 
 table every morning. So I got a patent medicine 
 almanac, I came in and you hunted up an old 
 one for me because it was closed season on 'em 
 then, and I learned one of those stories before 
 breakfast every morning. It was kind o' hard 
 at first too, because for three mornings there 
 wasn't a soul at breakfast to tell that story to. 
 My wife didn't get up in time, but I'd made the 
 resolution and you'ld have died to have heard 
 me there in the dining-room telling myself out 
 loud one of those patent medicine almanac 
 chestnuts." 
 
 156 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 "Ha-ha-ha!" laughed Morrison. "I sup- 
 posed you were a natural born story teller. 
 You're always full of them. I never would have 
 thought that was the way you got your story 
 telling habit." 
 
 " Yes, sir, that's the way I got my start in life, 
 you might say. It did the business too. It 
 started me out for business feeling perfectly 
 foolish, and I never saw a man who could nurse 
 a grouch when he was feeling absolutely foolish 
 or when he'd left his family laughing over a 
 funny story he'd just told. 
 
 "Well, when I'd start for the store feeling 
 cheerful, I'd find that I'd speak cheerfully to 
 every fellow I met, and they'd speak cheerfully 
 to me, so that I'd get to the store in a pretty 
 good mood and every day it lasted a little longer 
 till, the first thing I knew, I'd got rid of that 
 grouch habit and I never let it come back. 
 
 "There's something about being cheerful to 
 other folks that is sure to make you cheerful 
 yourself in the end. And without saying any- 
 thing about what a lot of fun you get out of life, 
 there isn't any question but that cheerfulness 
 pays the biggest kind of dividends. I'd rather 
 have a good, cheerful disposition to start in 
 business with than a capital of $10,000. Yes, I 
 know you think that's a joke, but it isn't. 
 
 157 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 Cheerfulness has a big money value in busi- 
 ness. 
 
 '' Well, I guess I'll be going along. Will you 
 let me buy some cigars now ? '' 
 
 ''No, not yet," said Morrison. "I want to 
 show you something in the advertising line that 
 IVe been getting up for my store and I want to 
 get your opinion about it." 
 ''All right, what is it?" 
 Morrison pulled open a drawer of the desk 
 and drew out a sample of what appeared to be 
 printed advertising matter. 
 
 " Here," said he, handing it to Tobias, " is a 
 copy of 'Morrison's Store News.' What do 
 you think of that for advertising?" 
 
 The Old Storekeeper took the paper and ex- 
 amined it carefully. It was a four-page paper 
 with pages about 6x9 inches, and it was well 
 printed on good white paper. It had a regular 
 miniature newspaper makeup with the heading 
 and volume and date, etc., all given, and there 
 were two columns to the page. In one of these 
 columns was advertising matter of the store's 
 goods, and in the other various items of local 
 interest interspersed with jokes. 
 
 Tobias read part of the contents and then 
 said: 
 
 " Charley, that's a mighty good advertisement. 
 
 158 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 I'll bet it isn't one of these cut and dried, ma- 
 chine-made store papers that you can buy all 
 printed with a place left for putting in your 
 name. It's a regular little newspaper about 
 your store and it's got enough other stuff in it to 
 make people interested and to read it through. 
 
 " I believe that for most businesses some kind 
 of a little regular publication of that sort, sent 
 out to a mailing list once a month, or once in 
 two months, is about the best kind of advertis- 
 ing next to the newspapers — and a fellow can 
 use a store paper when he couldn't use the news- 
 papers. 
 
 " Why, some of the country stores, in places 
 where they don't have any local paper, use the 
 store paper altogether and they get out some 
 pretty big ones too. You keep up that scheme, 
 Charley, and you'll find it's a good one. There 
 isn't much use of starting in unless you are go- 
 ing to stick to it, any more than there's any use 
 in starting in with any kind of advertising and 
 then stopping just as you get nicely under way. 
 
 " You just begin to get the best results from a 
 store paper kind of an advertisement after peo- 
 ple get to where they expect it and look for it 
 and maybe come in and kick if you forgot to 
 send them one. 
 
 " I've seen little bits of store publications that 
 
 159 
 
 I 
 
' 1 
 
 km 
 
 * More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 would fit into a common business envelope and 
 they were good ones too. It isn't size that 
 counts in that kind of advertising. It's the qual- 
 ity. Leave the patent insides to some other fel- 
 low and fill your paper with real newsy original 
 matter that you write yourself, or get someone 
 to write about your store. 
 
 " Don't forget to send me one of those when- 
 ever you get one out. I'm going to take this 
 home and read it carefully later. No, don't 
 give me any more cigars. I'm going to buy a 
 quarter's worth in spite of you. Good day! 
 You will soon make a first-class editor sure." 
 
 i6o 
 
 ELEVENTH TALK 
 A customer's point of view 
 
 The Flint store continued to prosper in spite 
 of the personal unpopularity of its proprietor. 
 The store was new and it had new goods and it 
 certainly used live methods of advertising and 
 selling them. These facts were the reasons for 
 its business development. 
 
 It drew a good deal of business from Barlow 
 and in addition to this, as is always the case, the 
 new competition stimulated Larry Benjamin and 
 the other local merchants to greater endeavor 
 and the result was that Barlow began to get a 
 little scared. 
 
 Confident at the outset that the new man 
 could not get his trade away from him, he found 
 that he was mistaken. The new man could get 
 it. Any new store can get some business. Any 
 store opened for business in the retail section of 
 a town is certain to do some business, no matter 
 what its methods or its stock. 
 
 For a week or so Barlow hoped that Tobias 
 
 i6i 
 

 IM' 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 would come in and open the subject so that he 
 could ask him what to do without first having 
 to admit that he had not taken the proper steps 
 to meet his new competition, but the Old Store- 
 keeper adhered to his resolution not to interfere 
 and finally his successor came out and called 
 him in one day as he was going past. 
 
 " Mr. Jenkins ! " he called, '' I want to talk to 
 you. Come in and have a chair for a while." 
 
 " What's the matter ? Do you want to give 
 me some good advice about how to make garden, 
 or are you going to show me a sample of the 
 biggest radishes in town ? " 
 
 " No, nothing about gardening. I've about 
 given that up lately. Fve had so much else on 
 my mind." 
 
 They walked back through the store to the 
 office and when Tobias was seated, Barlow asked, 
 
 " What am I going to do to keep this man 
 Flint from getting my trade away from me? 
 I know he has surprised me. I said he couldn't 
 do it, but Tm ready to admit that I didn't know 
 what I was talking about, so you needn't rub 
 that in any." 
 
 " He's kind o' getting under your belt, is he? 
 Well, I don't think you need to worry about 
 it because I don't believe he's going to close up 
 your store or any of the others, but I'd get busy 
 
 162 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 if I were you. First, I want to ask where is 
 Dolly Dingle? I see you've got a young fellow 
 that I don't know taking care of her counter." 
 
 *' Well, you see," explained Barlow hesi- 
 tatingly, " since we are going to be married I 
 thought she didn't need to work in the store, 
 so I got someone to take her place and she's 
 gone on a visit for a while." 
 
 " Hadn't you heard that it isn't a first class 
 time to swap horses when you're crossing a 
 stream ? " 
 
 '' Well, I didn't suppose it would make any 
 difference." 
 
 " Oh, that isn't what's getting your trade away 
 from you, not that entirely, but if I was both- 
 ered with some extra hot competition for a while 
 I don't believe I'd pick out that time to let old 
 clerks go and put new ones that folks don't know 
 on the job. Of course that's only one of the 
 little things that makes a difference, but in this 
 case it isn't such a little thing either. There's 
 Billie Henry who worked in your grocery de- 
 partment and Flint has hired him to get out 
 and take orders and deliver the goods. Those 
 two clerks gone out of your force and replaced 
 with new ones don't help any to hold your trade. 
 
 " I've been watching this Flint and the rest 
 of your fellow merchants lately and wondering 
 
 163 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 i! 
 
 ? i' 
 
 "He has popular priced novelties in every line/' 
 
 % 
 
 164 
 
 ^ 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 what would happen with competition hotter and 
 Tve noticed that things were warming up con- 
 siderable. I asked my wife yesterday what the 
 women thought of the new store and I got some 
 ideas from her about how the customers look 
 at the proposition. 
 
 " She says that one reason why Flint's store 
 is so popular is that he's got the very newest 
 things. Of course your store and the other 
 stores here in town are buying new goods all 
 the while and you get some of the latest things 
 in the market, but she says that this fellow has 
 a big line of novelty goods that people buy be- 
 cause they never had them before and they don't 
 cost much money. His store is more like a city 
 store in that way. Whenever you go in you 
 always see something that you want and that 
 you can afford to buy. 
 
 " He has the popular priced novelties in every 
 line he carries and a whole lot of these things 
 are goods that the Hampton folks didn't know 
 were made at all. And my wife says that the 
 reason he's got these goods is because he's been 
 in the city and gone around to all the different 
 wholesale and retail stores and made 'em show 
 him what was new. I asked her if she didn't 
 think that the other stores here kept up to date 
 pretty well but she didn't seem to think so. She 
 
 165 
 
 f. 
 
l-J 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 said ' Oh yes, of course they buy new goods 
 once in a while from the agents, but the new 
 goods aren't so very different from the old ones. 
 ' Why/ she said, * Fll bet that John Barlow or 
 Larry Benjamin either don't go to the city oftener 
 than once a year and then they just go and buy 
 the same things they'd buy if they stayed home 
 and let a drummer bring samples to them. They 
 don't go around any.' 
 
 " And I don't know but she's some right too. 
 Just going down to the city and going in and 
 buying a line of stuff from the same old house 
 year after year doesn't help a fellow to get wise 
 on novelties. He's got to find 'em just the same 
 as a woman would find 'em by shopping around. 
 Of course that's hard work and it doesn't leave 
 a man in good shape to enjoy the theatre at 
 night but it gets him a darned sight more sal- 
 able goods. If a customer thinks a store has 
 some new goods that he or she hasn't seen be- 
 fore, that means a visit to the store even if there 
 isn't anything special needed at that time. 
 
 "Why, I know myself, and you do too, that 
 if you see that Charley Morrison has got in a 
 new line of pipes or tobaccos, you want to go 
 in the first thing and look them, over. Maybe 
 you don't want any pipe and maybe you've got 
 slathers and oodles of tobacco but you want to 
 
 i66 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 see what's new and you'll probably buy some 
 before you get out. 
 
 "I expect a woman is the same way only 
 more so about the things she is interested in in a 
 store, things for the house, things to eat, or 
 things to wear, especially those last ! 
 
 " Then another thing my wife called my atten- 
 tion to was that this foxy Flint has gone and got 
 in his store clerks that know the people here 
 and that the people know. Some of those clerks 
 don't know but precious little about the goods, 
 but they know the folks and Flint has sense 
 enough to tell 'em that just as soon as a cus- 
 tomer asks about something they don't know 
 about, they're to call him or someone that does 
 
 know. 
 
 " That fixes it so that the customers don't care 
 so much about what sort of a chap Flint is him- 
 self as long as they get waited on by some one 
 they know. And he makes every one of those 
 clerks call the customers by name, by their actual 
 name, mind you. They musn't just say ' Good 
 morning Madam,' or ' yes sir ' or ' yes ma'am,' 
 they must say ' Good morning, Mrs. Jones,' and 
 ' Yes, Mrs. Jones.' And they have to say it too. 
 If they don't know a person's name, it's up to 
 them to find it out if they can so they'll know it 
 next time, and Flint himself is Johnny right 
 
 167 
 
if 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 on the spot all the while. He knows who's who 
 in his store. And every customer that comes in 
 is written down in a mailing list and gets adver- 
 tising fired at 'em right away. 
 
 '' You think this isn't telling you how to hold 
 your trade or how to get it back, but it is just 
 the same. The things that will draw trade one 
 way will draw it the other. You made the mis- 
 take of your life in letting Miss Dingle go vaca- 
 tioning now, marry or no marry. You need her 
 in your business and my advice to you is to write 
 to her and ask her to come back and get you 
 out of the hole, because if you don't get busy 
 you won't have business enough to support her 
 after you get her. Of course you ought to have 
 kept Billie Henry. You ought to have paid him 
 enough so he wouldn't have gone to Flint's. He 
 needs the money and he was at liberty to change 
 and while I wouldn't advise you in the matter, 
 I'm not saying that it wouldn't be fair for you 
 to see the other merchants that Flint stole clerks 
 from and all of you go after the clerks and get 
 them back in a bunch. Mind you, I don't advise 
 that. I just mention it. And if you get them, 
 ^tt them on a written contract to stay a definite 
 length of time. 
 
 " Another thing my wife said was that when 
 you go into Flint's you get waited on right away, 
 
 i68 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 or else they tell you how long it will be before 
 they can wait on you. In most stores you go in 
 and stand around with nothing but a nod from a 
 busy clerk and you can guess at the number of 
 people who are ahead of you and how much 
 they're going to buy and you don't know how 
 long you may have to wait. Perhaps you 
 haven't much time to spare and you might pre- 
 fer to come in again later or to go somewhere 
 else for what you want. Well, she says that 
 there someone is always ready to tell you that 
 they'll wait on you in five minutes, or that it 
 will be ten minutes before they can see you, as 
 the case may be. They ask you to sit down and 
 wait and if you don't think you can wait that 
 long, nobody gets sore about it or tries to tie you 
 fast to a post so you can't get out with your 
 money. 
 
 " It seems to me that the whole thing in a nut- 
 shell is simply that they take a lot of pains to 
 be polite to their customers and to make them 
 feel comfortable. In some stores their motto is 
 ^ We want your money ' and it sticks out all over 
 the people and the place just as plain as if they 
 had it printed on framed cards hung up around. 
 And that's all they do want too. You feel that 
 as soon as they've got it you can't ' beat it ' too 
 soon. Of course they want you to come back, 
 
 169 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 when you get more money, but they don't take 
 any pains to make you want to come. 
 
 " When I go into a store where they evidently 
 don't want anything of me but my money, I don't 
 go away hoping to see them again soon. Not 
 much ! I want the man who sells me goods in a 
 store, or anywhere else, to act as if he could think 
 in some terms beside just dollars and cents. It's 
 all right for a clerk to be looking out for his em- 
 ployer's interest all the time, but that ought to 
 mean that he's trying to make a satisfied customer 
 out of me. Nobody who knows anything about 
 business tries any more to run a store on the one 
 time customer plan. 
 
 " Everybody used to advertise * No trouble to 
 show goods.' Once in a while you see that now. 
 But the stores that advertised that were just as 
 likely as any others to get mad if a customer came 
 in and after looking at the whole line went away 
 without buying anything. 
 
 " I'll say this much for you, John, you always 
 did insist that the customer who didn't buy any- 
 thing must be treated just as well as the one who 
 bought a lot of stuff. Well, that counts in your 
 favor. You bear on hard on that now because 
 it's a strong feature. I don't know of anything 
 I like about a store better than just that. Ad- 
 vertise that and feature it and impress it upon the 
 
 170 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 minds of the public. Tell them that you want 
 them to come to your store when they're out look- 
 ing and that you don't care a continental whether 
 they buy anything or not. Of course you do 
 care and of course they know that you would 
 rather have them buy, but if you can treat them 
 as if they were free to do as they liked about it 
 and nobody get grouchy, then you'll get their 
 
 patronage. 
 
 " Of course some customers don't care two 
 straws. They'd as soon have the clerk get mad 
 over their not buying as to have him smile but 
 those people are about as scarce as hen's teeth 
 and even they won't mind if the clerk is polite 
 when they don't spend their money. 
 
 " Men are particularly backward about going 
 in and looking things over. A man just natu- 
 rally seems to hate to go into a store and ask to 
 see the different kinds of anything. He wants 
 to blow in with an air of assurance and say ' Give 
 me two dollars' worth of this or that ' and not 
 have to appear to care what the price is or to 
 seem ignorant in any way. But when he doesn't 
 know, which is a good deal of the time, he has 
 got to ask questions, and then he wants to go to 
 a store where they'll treat him well and let him 
 down easy if he doesn't buy. When he finds the 
 store that does business in that way, he is going 
 
 171 
 
 
M-: 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 to drop in there for everything he wants in their 
 line. 
 
 " I would advise you, or anybody who finds 
 himself up against a new line of hot competition, 
 to increase his advertising expense, to use bigger 
 space and to get up better window displays and 
 to put on a few special sales. This new store is 
 getting business with bargains. You give some 
 bargains too. Spend a little money in giving 
 people some values that will show them that no 
 new store can give better values than the old 
 established firm. 
 
 " Get your trade journals out and go through 
 the advertising pages of them and see what there 
 is that's new that you get to feature and see too 
 what's new in fixtures that will help you to dis- 
 play your goods better than the other fellow 
 shows his. I don't believe you give more than 
 half enough attention to your trade journals any- 
 way. I don't know how many you get but you 
 ought to have one for every line of goods you 
 carry. I know a druggist who made a success 
 of his business who subscribed for three drug 
 trade papers, a tobacco trade paper, a stationery 
 journal and one for the confectionery line. It 
 didn't cost him more than a few dollars every 
 year and he got no end of good ideas out of 
 them, and their advertising pages kept him sup- 
 
 172 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 plied with new goods all the time. He was an 
 up to date live merchant. 
 
 " I know another fellow who tried to run a 
 department store. He had a shoe, a clothing, a 
 grocery, a dry goods and one or two other de- 
 partments and he didn't take a single trade paper. 
 He's out of business now. The sheriff put on the 
 only good sale the store ever had. Don't make 
 any mistake about this trade paper business. 
 You may think you can't afford to take 'em all, 
 but I tell you you can't afford not to take all you 
 can possibly get time to read. And if you can't 
 read them yourself, let the clerks read them and 
 it will do you almost as much good. I had a talk 
 with Henry Foss the other day right along this 
 same line. I want to impress it on you too. 
 
 " There are some kinds of economy that aren't 
 economy at all and this going without trade 
 journals is one of them. It's a kind of ' save at 
 the spigot and waste at the bung ' economy. The 
 dealer out here in the smaller towns can't find 
 any better way of keeping up to date between 
 trips to the market than to read plenty of trade 
 papers. And I'm not sure but that he can keep 
 up to date about as well from the trade papers 
 alone as from the trips to the city. Think of all 
 the money and brains that are being put into 
 these journals all over the country in all lines! 
 
 173 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 The fellows behind these papers know what they 
 are about. They're right close to the people who 
 do the big advertising and make the big sellers 
 sell. 
 
 " And a good trade paper will tell a man pretty 
 nearly anything he wants to know. 
 
 " I'm not going to ask you what papers you 
 take because I don't believe you take many and 
 I don't want to embarrass you, but you get busy 
 and subscribe for some more of them and if you 
 don't get some ideas out of them that will help 
 you to trim that Flint chap, I'll pay for the best 
 suit of clothes you can buy in town." 
 ^The Old Storekeeper got up and stretched 
 himself and reached for his hat. 
 
 " I'm much obliged to you for your talk," said 
 Barlow. " You haven't jumped on me as hard as 
 you might have done and I appreciate vour letting 
 me down easy. I think I'll just take up your 
 advice. Come in again." 
 
 " Oh, I'll do that all right ; don't worry." And 
 Tobias went out whistling his favorite tune. 
 
 174 
 
 TWELFTH TALK 
 
 HOW TO HAVE GOOD CLERKS 
 
 It was about this time that the business men of 
 Hampton decided to form an organization for 
 the general good of the business of the town. 
 
 They called this " The Enterprise Club " and 
 they planned to meet regularly once a month in 
 an informal way and have a sort of smoker with 
 a talk on some business subject by some live busi- 
 ness man. 
 
 A local business men's association of some 
 sort is a necessity in every town if it expects to 
 hold its own against the outside influences that 
 are all the while being brought to bear to get 
 away the business of its citizens. 
 
 It is easier nowadays to buy away from home 
 than it ever was before. Buying by mail has 
 been facilitated in every way and the automobile 
 makes it easy for a good many people in the 
 smaller place to get to the larger town to do their 
 important buying. 
 
 175 
 
15;' ■ I 
 
 1- • ! 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 f^. ?! ^"*f,^Pf's«^ Club was formed with the hope 
 that It would bnng the merchants together so that 
 they would present a united front to the outside 
 world. It was expected that there would be busi- 
 ness carnivals business shows and bargain weeks 
 and many other schemes for drawing trade to 
 riampton. 
 
 While Tobias Jenkins was not a merchant, still 
 he was actively interested in the town's business 
 matters and he was glad to become a member of 
 the club and help it along in every possible way. 
 Any such club will often find it an advantage to 
 
 Every member should and will feel the impor- 
 tance o oyalty to the home merchants and each 
 one will feel m duty bound to do all the buying 
 at home that is possible. 
 
 The first meeting at which there was to be a 
 speech or talk came not long after the events of 
 our last chapter and Tobias was asked to ad- 
 
 clerks ''^"'' "^'''' ^^^ '"''^'^'^ ""^ ^^^^^^"& 
 
 He demurred at making any kind of a speech 
 as he was no public speaker but he finally con- 
 sented to talk to them in an informal kind of 
 
 with them while he talked. To this they con- 
 
 176 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 sented and thus he became in his own way the 
 " speaker of the evening.'' 
 
 "Your president/' said he, "asked me if I 
 wouldn't say something about clerks and I very 
 foolishly said I would. Now, there's a good deal 
 that can be said about them and about some of 
 them, the less said, the better. I never had much 
 trouble getting along with the boys and they 
 never had much trouble getting along with me — 
 if they had any idea of being on the square. 
 
 "At first when I wanted a clerk, I used to 
 keep thinking, ' I wonder if I can get the sort 
 of a man I want.' Then somehow it just hap- 
 pened to pop into my head ' I wonder if I am the 
 sort of a man a good clerk wants to work for.' 
 That idea set me thinking a good deal and the 
 result was that I made up my mind that there's 
 as much in being a good boss as there is in being 
 a good clerk. 
 
 " I tried to think of cases where a bad boss 
 had good clerks and I couldn't think of any, un- 
 less it might be one or two where the clerk had 
 quit as soon as he found out he wasn't working 
 for the right kind of a man. And if you your- 
 selves will take notice you will find that the only 
 kind of clerk that will stay with a poor merchant 
 is a poor clerk. 
 
 " The good clerk is looking for a chance to bet- 
 
 177 
 
I 
 
 ; I 
 
 I 
 
 H 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 ter himself. He has ambitions. He wants to 
 get to be something more than a mere clerk. He 
 wants some day to be his own boss and have a 
 store of his own, and if he is working for a man 
 who doesn't know how to run a store, he'll have 
 sense enough to realize that he can't learn there. 
 
 " Some employers think they don't want a 
 clerk who is planning to go into business for 
 himself. They're afraid he'll get to be a com- 
 petitor and steal all of their methods and take 
 their customers with him. Well, if a man isn't 
 willing to take any chances at all in business, he'd 
 better stay out of it. If he'd rather have poor 
 clerks just so they won't get to be his com- 
 petitors, let him have them. But it's a mistake 
 to look at it in that way. Get the ambitious 
 young men who want to accomplish something 
 and take pains to teach them as much as they can 
 learn about the business. The more ambition 
 they have to get into business, the better help 
 they will be. You can't keep a man from start- 
 ing out for himself just by refusing to help him 
 learn the business. He's sure to do you more 
 harm ignorant behind your own counter than 
 he'd do behind his own later. 
 
 " You've got to take an interest in your clerks 
 if you expect them to take much interest in you. 
 You can't expect him to work his head off to 
 
 178 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 make your business a success if you won't turn 
 over your hand to help him to succeed. 
 
 " And a clerk needs appreciation too. It's all 
 very well to say that a clerk's pay is what he 
 should get for his work and that flattery won't 
 get you anything from him. Nevertheless he 
 likes to be told he is doing well. You like it 
 yourselves. Why, the money a man gets for his 
 work isn't really the important thing. He wants 
 people to know that he's done well, that he's 
 amounted to something. You tell your clerks 
 so when you notice they are making good and 
 they'll work twice as hard to keep on improving. 
 Flattery may not be wages, but it sure makes the 
 wages look bigger. 
 
 " A merchant has a moral responsibility too in 
 connection with his clerks. It's up to him to 
 know something about what kind of a fellow that 
 clerk is outside of store hours and it's up to him 
 to set him an example that it won't hurt him to 
 follow. If the clerk has any ideas at all, one of 
 them is pretty apt to be that his boss is a pretty 
 good example for him to follow if he wants to 
 get to be his own merchant some day. 
 
 "You know where the boy would land that 
 followed the example of some employers. Em- 
 ployers who have themselves made money and 
 who apparently are successful business men, are 
 
 179 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeepei* 
 
 > ( 
 
 '^Setting their clerks an example of fast living/' 
 
 180 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 setting their clerks an example of fast living that 
 will ruin the youngsters in a short time, no mat- 
 ter what it may do to the employers who perhaps 
 kept sober till they got their business built. 
 
 " I believe in a man knowing what his clerks 
 are doing outside of business hours and calling 
 them for it if they get sporty. The clerk who 
 won't appreciate such an interest on the part of 
 his employer, who says that it isn't any of the 
 boss's business what he does outside of the store, 
 is wrong and going wrong. If he's right, and 
 if he behaves himself out of the store, he won't 
 care if his boss does know what he does. 
 
 "There's more than the reason of moral re- 
 sponsibility for this. There is good business 
 sense in it. Who wants to trust his money in 
 the hands of a man who spends his nights gam- 
 bling? Who wants part of his customers kept 
 away from his store because he has a clerk whom 
 women don't want to do business with? I tell 
 you, it is a man's business what his clerks do 
 wherever they are. It isn't necessary for him to 
 be offensive in interesting himself in their af- 
 fairs. He needn't and he shouldn't be snooping 
 around and spying on them. He ought to be 
 perfectly frank about it and talk over that sort 
 of thing with a clerk just as he'd talk over the 
 quality of a new arrival of goods. 
 
 i8i 
 
.^I. 
 
 'll 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " And here's another thing; don't jump on the 
 clerks for mistakes. A man who never makes 
 mistakes doesn't count for very much and you 
 and I make them in business pretty nearly every 
 day. We can't help it. But it doesn't make us 
 feel any better to be cussed for it. When a mis- 
 take has been made, it's been made. The thing 
 to do is to prevent its being made again and get 
 out of it this time as well as possible. 
 
 " If a man can't keep his temper with his help 
 when they do things wrong, they'll be all the 
 more apt to do them wrong. It makes a man 
 nervous and more likely to do a thing wrong if 
 he knows that somebody is watching him all the 
 time with a temper already to fly to pieces the 
 minute everything isn't just exactly right. 
 
 "I don't hold any brief for the * easy boss' 
 who lets mistakes slip by without a word and 
 takes everything as it comes. He won't help his 
 clerks to get any better, but I want to condemn 
 the Simon Legree sort of a chap who can't stand 
 it to have a little authority without abusing it. 
 
 '' There are some kinds of clerks a man never 
 ought to hire at all. It will save him trouble and 
 time and money to let them work for somebody 
 else. One of these is the man who drinks. I 
 don't care how much or how little he uses booze, 
 you never know what he is going to do. Marry- 
 
 182 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 ing a man to reform him and hiring him in the 
 hope of reforming him are a good deal alike. 
 If you want to reform partial or total drunkards, 
 that's a good idea and I approve of it, but I 
 don't think the way, or even one of the ways of 
 doing it is to hire them to work in your store. 
 
 " Booze and business won't any more mix than 
 oil and water and any young fellow who doesn't 
 believe that has just that much more to learn and 
 if he will learn it from somebody else's experi- 
 ence instead of from his own, he'll be money and 
 a lot more things ahead in the end. 
 
 "Then there's the quick tempered chap, the 
 fellow who just can't help going right up in the 
 air if a customer insinuates that he isn't telling 
 the exact truth or if the boss drops him a friendly 
 hint on some of his shortcomings. You may 
 possibly get along with such a chap by handling 
 him with gloves, but unless you're pretty even 
 tempered yourself and can keep your mouth shut 
 when he treats you with scant politeness, better 
 let him pass on to someone else. 
 
 " The clerk with poor health you can do as 
 you like about. If you are of a charitable na- 
 ture and his illness isn't contagious, take him on 
 and let him work when he can and make up your 
 mind to get along without him when he can't. 
 The average human being is sick enough of the 
 
 183 
 
n 
 
 ^n 
 
 ! I 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 time, and calls for enough days off for the ordi- 
 nary run of life's ailments without your picking 
 out a fellow who is below the physical average. 
 
 " The cigarette fiend is another bad bargain. 
 I don't care if you run a tobacco store and want 
 a man to go behind the cigarette counter; you 
 don't want a fellow who looks dirty and ciga- 
 retty. He won't be any better advertisement for 
 the cigarette business than a drunkard is for a 
 saloon. 
 
 " Use care in picking out clerks and you won't 
 have to use as much care in watching them after- 
 ward or as much tact in getting rid of them. An 
 ounce of prevention in such a deal is worth many 
 pounds of cure. 
 
 '' The way a man treats his clerks makes all 
 the difference in the world with the kind of serv- 
 ice he will get out of them. The fellow who 
 makes it plain right at the outset that they are 
 his employes and that all they need expect from 
 him is their wages, will get their time and they 
 will do what they are told to do, but they will be 
 working for their own interests and doing as lit- 
 tle as they can instead of feeling that the store 
 is theirs and that its success is their success. 
 
 '' I believe in giving help a financial interest in 
 the growth and development of the business. 
 It's a good plan if it's a stock company to give 
 
 184 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 them a piece of the stock for Christmas or at 
 the end of each year of their time with the store. 
 A man who has stock in a store, if he is any good 
 at all, will not be losing many chances to boost 
 that store's trade. He will be for his employer 
 first, last and all the time. 
 
 ** Another good plan is to give a clerk the first 
 of January a certain percentage of the net gain 
 in business for the year. Clerks who are going 
 to get a part of the business gain are going to 
 do all they can to make that gain something 
 worth while. 
 
 " Such plans identify the clerk with the store 
 and make him a part of it. He acts as if he was 
 interested. He doesn't stand with his mouth shut 
 while customers walk out because they needed a 
 little help in getting the right goods. 
 
 " When you get a clerk who makes the store 
 his store, who comes to you regularly with sug- 
 gestions for improvements in store or stock, who 
 is always on his job on time and always polite 
 and interested, hang onto that clerk. Don't let 
 anybody hire him away from you by offering him 
 more money because he is worth more money to 
 you than to almost anybody else. If he is worth 
 a raise, raise him and don't wait for him to in- 
 sist upon it either. One good clerk helps to draw 
 others. He helps to draw a good class of trade. 
 
 185 
 
n 
 
 H 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 He helps in every way that the business needs 
 help. 
 
 " It's better to hire a good man and pay him 
 more than you can afford to pay than to hire a 
 poor man and pay him anything. 
 
 " One of the most important things to teach ti 
 clerk is salesmanship. Everyone of you mer- 
 chants is a more or less good salesman. You 
 have all had a good deal of experience. You 
 know some things about selling goods that 
 your clerks don't know. Do you take pains to 
 teach them what you know ? You ought to talk 
 over with them the matter of salesmanship and 
 find out how much they know about the theory 
 of it as well as about the practice. 
 
 " There are lots of good little books on sales- 
 manship that it will pay you to put into the hand 
 of the clerks. I believe in giving employes of 
 all sorts plenty of good business literature and 
 letting them get the theory as well as the practice 
 of selling goods. 
 
 "Any man who has two or three or more 
 clerks will make money by getting them inter- 
 ested in scientific salesmanship. The average 
 clerk thinks little or nothing about such things. 
 He goes into a store and there he sells goods 
 and learns what he happens to learn by experi- 
 ence. He notices that some kinds of talk get 
 
 i86 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 more buyers than other kinds and he takes up 
 those lines of argument. But he doesn't know 
 that by studying into the thing further he could 
 find out why each customer who buys does so 
 and why each one who does not buy does that 
 
 way. 
 
 " Reasons for things of that kind are impor- 
 tant. When a man dressing a window puts in 
 a bright red display he notices that he sells a lot 
 of goods of the kind he had exhibited. He 
 figures that he had a good bargain there or that 
 the arrangement was catchy, or something else. 
 He knows that the window was a red one and 
 he knows that it sold goods but he may not know 
 that it sold the goods because it was a red win- 
 dow. If he had gone into the theory of the 
 thing and found that red will attract the atten- 
 tion of the eye quicker than any other color, he 
 might have had the key to other successful win- 
 dows. I tell you gentlemen, it pays to get onto 
 the theory of things. Everybody looks for scien- 
 tific reasons nowadays. 
 
 " Little things in salesmanship are mighty im- 
 portant. A fastidious customer may be sent 
 away to make an important purchase somewhere 
 else just because the clerk's finger nails were 
 dirty in your store. You think that's getting it 
 down pretty fine, but it's true. A clerk with a 
 
 187 
 
~< 
 
 * I 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 bad breath can't talk across the counter to me 
 
 Hke cheap hli? T' .'°"^' ""^" ^^^^^ 'ooks 
 hi! Tt^ P ^"^ ^ ^^^^P sto'-e too. Anythine 
 
 away irom its cash receintQ p^^*.i -h 
 
 te'oTtr", "'"^ *'^^ P^^^- -^ they don't 
 thW , ^ '"'" *° 'P^"^ ^' ^^here there is any 
 
 ti, '^'^''/^"^'"ded the talk and after everyone had 
 thanked Tobias for his good, plain advke 'he 
 "eetmg broke up. As the members went out 
 Barlow walked along with Tobias and said 
 
 to talkTomtr '" *'' '*"'' *°-"^^'-°-- I -ant 
 
 to le tm^ff * "^' ""''*. ^^^'^ y°"- I -an't seem 
 
 o et my affairs gomg right. In fact everything 
 
 IS all gomg wrong." jiiimg 
 
 " What's the matter ? " 
 
 tolvht Tnt^r "^ *° ''" '"°" ^">^*h^"^ a*'^"* it 
 
 on the nght road or I don't know what I'll do " 
 Tobias agreed to be on hand early in the morn 
 mg and bade him good night. 
 
 i88 
 
 THIRTEENTH TALK 
 
 GETTING THE BUSINESS BACK 
 
 Promptly at eight o'clock the morning after 
 the meeting of the business organization, Tobias 
 walked briskly into Barlow's store and going 
 back to where the proprietor sat at his desk, he 
 drew a chair up and asked, 
 
 " Well, son, what's the trouble ? How can I 
 help you ? " 
 
 " It's just this," said Barlow, going into the 
 matter without delay. "That Flint store, or 
 somebody, is getting my business away too fast. 
 I'm running behind. I can't keep my help busy 
 and my funds are a little short too. I don't want 
 to discharge anybody if I can help it because that 
 will give the situation away to the public." 
 
 " Has Dolly Dingle come back ? " asked To- 
 bias. 
 
 *' No, and she won't, I'm afraid that's all off, 
 Mr. Jenkins. I wrote and told her the trouble 
 and said I wished she would come back and help 
 me out and we'd keep our engagement quiet for 
 
 189 
 
t 
 
 H 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 XTl t''^ ^ ^°* ^ ^"""'" "'S*^t ^^^y saying 
 that she had supposed I was competent to man- 
 
 age my aflFairs and keep my store running and 
 that ,f I was ashamed to have my engagement 
 known ,t better be ended before it was too late, 
 so she broke it right off." 
 
 T K^° yo" know what's the trouble?" asked 
 lobias. You put it wrong end to in the letter 
 You ye got to remember that you can't put things 
 in a letter just as you'd say 'em. You've got to 
 be mighty careful and see that they read so that 
 they give just the meaning you want 'em to give 
 That s particularly important in business letters.' 
 All of these times when a merchant gets hot at 
 the wholesaler or when the manufacturer gets 
 mad at the merchant are just because of some 
 tool mistake of a careless letter writer. 
 
 " If you'd seen Dolly and talked this over with 
 her there wouldn't have been any misunder- 
 standing. But that's neither here nor there as 
 far as I'm concerned. I'm not going to offer 
 advice m anybody's love affairs. I'll tell vou 
 what you're going to do. You're all going to 
 pieces and you're going to take a vacation." 
 
 But how can I take a vacation now of all 
 times when my business is going down hill and 
 everything is at loose ends ? " 
 " I'll tell you. You aren't in any shape to get 
 
 190 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 a business back on its feet. You're just like an 
 automobile stuck in a mud-hole; the harder it 
 tries to get out, the deeper it digs itself in. Now 
 you show me how things stand, explain your 
 books to me, then pack your grip and dig out. I 
 don't care where you go, but go somewhere and 
 stay a couple of months. I'm going to take over 
 this business myself for that long and have some 
 fun. I've just been wishing I could get a chance 
 to get into a store for a while again and see what 
 
 I could do." 
 
 "You're mighty kind, Mr. Jenkins, but I 
 couldn't do that. It's asking too much of you 
 and then I wouldn't be easy a day while I was 
 
 away." 
 
 " I don't care whether you're easy while you're 
 away or not. I'll guarantee that you'll be easy 
 when you come back. That ought to be worth 
 something. Now come on and show me about 
 things. Everything that I don't need to know, 
 
 leave out." 
 
 After some more argument Barlow finally con- 
 sented to do as Tobias asked him to do and they 
 spent the day in getting the Old Storekeeper 
 acquainted with the details of the business situa- 
 tion. 
 
 The next morning Barlow left town and it 
 was announced that the work of managing his in- 
 
 191 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 creasing business had made it necessary for him 
 to take a rest for a couple of months. Tobias 
 took matters in hand. 
 
 The first thing, he did was to consider well 
 what might be done right away to stop the trade 
 that was gradually drifting away and draw back 
 that which had gone. 
 
 His first consideration was given to that great- 
 est of all business bringers, the premium scheme. 
 The diflFerent variations of this plan, like any 
 other, have some objections. But the fact that a 
 plan is not perfectly adapted to all cases is no 
 reason for condemning it wholesale. There are 
 exceptions to all rules. 
 
 
 
 The two months elapsed and aside from an 
 occasional postal card, Tobias had heard noth- 
 ing from Barlow. He in turn had sent no in- 
 formation regarding the store and the business 
 except an occasional statement to the effect that 
 everything was all right and that he was to stay 
 his two months out. 
 
 The Old Storekeeper sat at the desk one even- 
 ing making out a set of figures showing the busi- 
 ness of the two months past. It was after clos- 
 ing time and the clerks had gone home. The 
 whistle of the evening train from the south blew 
 just as Tobias tilted back in his chair and gave 
 
 192 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 a sigh of satisfaction, lit a fresh cigar and pro- 
 ceeded to wait for Barlow's coming for he had 
 received a telegram saying that he would be in on 
 that train. He had not overstayed his leave of 
 absence by so much as a single day. 
 
 In a short time the door opened and the young 
 proprietor rushed in looking brown and rugged 
 and full of energy. He shouted a greeting to 
 Tobias and grasped his hands and pumped them 
 up and down until the older man had to call for 
 mercy. 
 
 " Say, boy, you're strong and ambitious. 
 What the dickens have you been doing — taking 
 somebody's elixir of life ? Come into your office 
 and sit down ! " 
 
 " By George ! It seems good to get back 
 again, Mr. Jenkins. How's everything? Break 
 it to me gently if the rest of my business has 
 been stolen away. Say, I've got more ideas in 
 my head about ways for making a store do busi- 
 ness than I could tell you in a week. I've been 
 putting in time finding out things since I left you. 
 I haven't been loafing around all these weeks, not 
 by a long shot. But first, go ahead and let me 
 know what you've been doing here. You look 
 as if you'd enjoyed it at that." 
 
 " I have enjoyed it, John. I've had the time 
 of my life and I'm proud to say I've made good. 
 
 193 
 
V 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 Now, if you've got time to listen, I'll tell you 
 how I did it. First, here are the figures of the 
 receipts for the two months as compared with 
 the corresponding time last year. You see, there 
 was a big deficiency at first and it was a month 
 before I got up even and now we're runnin? 
 way ahead. 
 
 " What I did was to go into the premium busi- 
 ness. I don't know whether you approve of it 
 or not and that's one reason why I wanted you 
 out of the way. I could see that the case called 
 for desperate medicine at once. 
 
 "Flint had begun giving rebate checks that 
 were good for a cash discount on every ten dol- 
 lars' worth. Larry Benjamin was giving a cash 
 discount on every purchase of ten dollars' worth. 
 We, or rather, you, hadn't been doing anything 
 to meet this. 
 
 " You'd never used the check printing part of 
 your cash register to any advantage." (Barlow 
 had chosen a cash register system for his store 
 and installed it during the winter.) "The 
 checks had no value and naturally nobody took 
 'em. They were wasted. I sent to the manu- 
 facturer and got a new electro reading, 'This 
 check is good for a premium. Ask the' man ! ' 
 Then I sat down and ordered from a bi<^ mail 
 order jobber, a lot of cut glass ; brassware like 
 
 194 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 jardinieres, fern dishes, candlesticks, etc.; Rog- 
 ers plated silverware such as teaspoons, knives 
 and forks, in standard pattern. 
 
 " In the newspapers and by circulars and with 
 posters in the store, see, there's one of them! 
 I advertised that cash register checks would be 
 given with all cash purchases of all kinds and 
 that these checks would be redeemed in certain 
 premiums. 
 
 "By that time the premiums were here and 
 displayed in that big showcase over there. A 
 sample of each kind was put in the case and out 
 in the back room duplicates were arranged in 
 labelled spaces and all wrapped ready to deliver. 
 I made people come for their premiums of 
 course. It was one of the rules, or rather it is 
 one, for the plan is still at work, that nobody 
 could send for the premium or have it sent to 
 them. The person wanting it had to come for 
 it, at least the person who came for it had to 
 have the checks and make the deal. That gave 
 us a chance to get them interested in continuing 
 to save the checks and it made it probable that 
 they would make a purchase while in the store 
 after the premium. On each premium we put 
 a good, plain card telling how many dollars' worth 
 of checks it took to get it. 
 
 " For instance, we figured that the premiums 
 
 195 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 '7 advertised that cash register checks would be re- 
 deemed in premiums," 
 
 196 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 were worth to the customer eight or ten per cent 
 of the checks it took to get them. These pre- 
 miums cost me something less than five per cent, 
 some of them not more than three. One of the 
 premiums that we give for five dollars in checks 
 (and that is the lowest figure that gets anything) 
 is a Rogers teaspoon in that vintage pattern that 
 they advertise in the magazines. It costs $2.41 
 per dozen. There is a line of Japanese china- 
 ware too that is inexpensive and it gets the 
 women to looking every time. 
 
 " Why, there isn't a case of goods in the store 
 that attracts the attention that premium case 
 attracts. I keep a girl behind it all the time, 
 showing up the premiums and explaining the 
 plan. And we take just as much pains in help- 
 ing a customer choose a premium as if she were 
 buying something. 
 
 "Of course there haven't been a lot of pre- 
 mium goods taken out yet because people are 
 just beginning to get enough checks to be en- 
 titled to them. Quite a lot of the cheaper ones 
 have gone and they have helped to advertise the 
 plan. It always seems at first to a customer as 
 if she would never get checks enough to win a 
 premium, but once get them started and they 
 find that it counts up pretty fast. 
 
 " You might think that this premium thing 
 
 197 
 
 i 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 *'U/ 
 
 IVe take pains in helping a customer choose 
 
 premium/' 
 
 198 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 wouldn't be as good by quite a lot as the cash 
 discount or the rebate plan of those other fel- 
 lows. Well, it isn't as good if the customer only 
 knew it, but there never was a time when people 
 wouldn't save checks to get a premium a good 
 deal sooner than they would bother to take a cash 
 discount. A cash rebate doesn't look particu- 
 larly good to anyone unless they get it right 
 along with the goods. They can't see it. They 
 want to save to get something that they can see. 
 And after I'd had both those biggest win- 
 dows filled with premiums for a few days, you'd 
 have laughed in your sleeve to see the people 
 coming back here that had been trying trading 
 at Flint's. Why, if Flint's got any business left 
 I don't know where he's getting it. 
 
 "Of course this premium trade is all cash 
 trade and the plan is going to cut out pretty near 
 all of your credit business in a little while. 
 That's where your cash register is getting in its 
 fine work with the checks. There aren't very 
 many people looking for credit now. When a 
 woman can see a good piece of cut glass or some 
 other nice thing that she can get free by paying 
 spot cash for her goods, she isn't going to run a 
 charge account and lose that premium, not if 
 she's a careful and economical housekeeper any- 
 
 way. 
 
 199 
 
Il 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " This kind of a premium plan is a good ways 
 ahead of trading stamps or any other scheme 
 where you have to pay some outside parties a 
 profit on the game. A man can just as well get 
 up his own plan and save that much money and 
 then people have to come to his store for their 
 premiums and they h^ve to do all their trading 
 there to get them. They can't get them by buy- 
 ing anywhere else the same kind of goods in a 
 <litferent kind of a store. 
 
 "" Of course you may not want to run this 
 scheme forever and IVe got to admit that it's not 
 an easy matter to close up the plan. People will 
 bother you with wanting premiums after youVe 
 stopped giving them and when you stop there 
 will be a lot of checks to be redeemed on some 
 kmd of a basis, but I took all this into considera- 
 tion when I started the plan. Your store has 
 to have something to get the trade back and I 
 knew this would do it. IVe advertised these 
 premiums just as Fd advertise any line of goods 
 that you might want to sell. I had to get quick 
 results so I bore on hard and the results, I guess, 
 justify me in doing it." 
 
 <^ wu ^?. ''^'^^''''^ "^^'^ ^'^^^ ^^ Barlow. 
 Why I had no idea that any such results could 
 
 be got with any kind of a scheme. I'm ready 
 
 200 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 to admit that I don't know it all. But I've 
 learned some things while I've been out around. 
 It certainly does a man a lot of good to see what 
 merchants are doing in other towns and cities. 
 You can sit here at home and think about your 
 business all you want to but there are lots of 
 things, no end of them, that you'll never think of 
 at all." 
 
 "You're dead right on that, John. I some- 
 times wonder how these stay-at-home fellows 
 develop as much business as they do. I don't 
 believe in a man gadding about the country and 
 leaving his business ordinarily, but there are 
 times when he has to get out of the rut. If a 
 fellow sticks right close and never goes anywhere 
 or sees anything he may get the theory of the 
 new business ideas but he won't have the big 
 advantage of seeing them in use. And then 
 when he gets out he has a chance to meet live 
 fellows and talk with them, and even if they 
 don't give you so many new ideas, they give you 
 new points of view and they set your brain work- 
 ing along a new line and you figure out new 
 ideas for yourself. 
 
 " That's one reason why a man ought to join 
 an association in his line of business and in his 
 section of the country. Did you ever notice how 
 
 201 
 
 If 
 
I\ 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 few members there are in the meetings of the 
 associations compared with the number of stay- 
 at-homes ? 
 
 " A whole lot of fellows think the association 
 don't amount to anything and don't do any good. 
 They're all wrong. The associations do all kinds 
 of good in a general way. They look after 
 legislation and they help raise the standard of 
 business. They may be run by cliques as a lot 
 of men say they are, but who cares ? Somebody 
 has to run an association just as there has to be 
 an organization in politics, and when you get 
 right down to brass tacks, the fellows who are 
 doing the kicking aren't generally men who 
 could take hold and do very good work on the 
 job themselves. As far as I've noticed the men 
 who do the work get little enough out of it in 
 the way of glory or money for the time they use 
 up. As far as I'm concerned, I'd a thousand 
 times rather have somebody else run the thing 
 than to have to run it myself. 
 
 " If all these knockers would stop asking what 
 the association has done for them and ask them- 
 selves what they ever did for their association, 
 it might have the effect of starting 'em thinking 
 along the right line. 
 
 " Suppose the association hasn't accomplished 
 any big thing that helped your business, if you 
 
 202 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 have gone to the meetings, you have got enough 
 benefit to pay you a hundred times for all it cost 
 — and you've probably had a darned good time 
 as well. If you haven't gone to the meetings, 
 how can you complain about not getting any 
 benefits? What's worth having is generally 
 worth going after. 
 
 " How can a man go to a meeting where there 
 are from a dozen to a hundred other men who 
 are engaged in the same business, without getting 
 some ideas if he talks to the rest of them about 
 the business at all? He can't. If he just goes 
 and keeps his mouth shut, if his ears are open 
 he is going to find out some things worth know- 
 ing. And a fellow never knows where or when 
 he may pick up a single good idea that will be 
 worth a hundred dollars or several hundred to 
 him as a business getter. 
 
 " Now, you've been out roaming around and 
 you've learned a good many things and a lot of 
 them may never prove of any value to you, but 
 there is probably some one good idea in the lot 
 that will bring you in some day several times as 
 much money as this trip has cost you. 
 
 " I'm not going to talk to you all night. Here's 
 the key to your store. Here's your cash book 
 and your bank book and you'll find everything 
 else where you left it. There's just one ques- 
 
 203 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 tion I want to ask and that's really none of my 
 business. Did you see Dolly Dingle ? " 
 
 No, I didn't. I've never even written her 
 since I told you what she wrote to me." 
 
 " Good," said the older man. " You have got 
 some sense after all. Now get back into the 
 harness and after a week or two, just run down 
 to wherever she is and straighten that little mat- 
 ter out and bring her back with you and marry 
 her. Then she'll have to help you about run- 
 ning the store because she'll want to do it. 
 Come on, let's go home. I'm tired and I'll bet 
 you are too." 
 
 FOURTEENTH TALK 
 
 USING THE WINDOWS 
 
 20A 
 
 "Hello, Jerry!" exclaimed the Old Store- 
 keeper as he walked into Barlow's store one 
 morning and found Jerry Barnard standing near 
 the front intently examining the windows. 
 
 " Good morning, Mr. Jenkins," responded the 
 clerk. " I'm just wondering if it wouldn't pay 
 me to study up the window dressing business, 
 kind of make a specialty of it, you know. I 
 don't know as I could make much right here in 
 Hampton as a window dresser but after I got to 
 be expert I could get a good job somewhere, 
 couldn't I ? " 
 
 " I think you could, Jerry. I notice your dis- 
 plays are always well arranged and I guess 
 you've got some talent along that line. I'm not 
 so sure that Barlow couldn't afford to pay you 
 well for a better knowledge of that kind of work. 
 Most merchants could afford to spend more 
 money to have their windows right if they rea- 
 lized how valuable they are. 
 
 205 
 
 m 
 
1.- 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 "Now you know, the trade papers are all the 
 while telhng how to make window displays and 
 
 merchants minds that they ought to spend more 
 time and money on window dressing. But you 
 go out and look at the windows in the stores 
 along this street and what do you see? You see 
 dirty glass, fly-specked show cards, displays that 
 you cant get up any interest in; pretty near 
 everything but what you ought to see. It's funny 
 that so many merchants don't think about their 
 windows I guess that's all there is to it, they 
 just don t think of them. Anybody with any 
 ^ense knows that window displays pay mighty 
 
 "Yes," said Jerry, " I've thought of that a 
 good many times. The merchants out here in 
 the smaller towns don't seem to want to bother 
 with their windows." 
 
 J Well, ril tell you one thing, Jerry, the man 
 who doesn t want to bother with his window 
 displays won't need to be bothered with a very 
 big surplus in his bank account. The shiftless 
 looking window won't draw any trade, but more 
 than that, it will drive trade away. Who wants 
 to trade at a dirty, shiftless store? And who 
 can see a store keep up that kind of windows 
 and not think the rest of the store is the same 
 
 206 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 way more or less? I can't. I always judge a 
 man first by his clothes and a store by its win- 
 dows. It's natural to do that. A fellow may be 
 wrong and probably he is in a good many cases, 
 but it's generally a pretty safe bet that people 
 who are shiftless about one thing are shiftless 
 about all. 
 
 " You can learn a good deal right here with 
 these windows. Subscribe to one of these cor- 
 respondence courses in window trimming and 
 take pains to get out of it all you can. Of course 
 there's no use in a man buying any kind of 
 printed information and then shutting it up in a 
 desk or a book-case. Get hold of all the window 
 matter you can and read it. Clip all the items 
 of that sort out of your trade papers. Barlow'U 
 be glad to have you save anything you can find 
 in the journals he takes. 
 
 " Make yourself a scrap-book of window ideas 
 and if you keep saving that sort of thing you will 
 find by and bye that when you want an idea 
 about how to dress a window, instead of having 
 to think it all put for yourself, you can turn to 
 that scrap-book and find something there that 
 will save you the time and trouble. 
 
 " Some fellows take a great interest in their 
 windows for a little while and then get tired and 
 let it go for a month just about as it may happen 
 
 207 
 
 M'. 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 to look They are the sort of men who do every- 
 thing else on that same plan. A spurt is good 
 while ,t lasts, but why not keep it up. That's 
 what I ve asked several of the merchants in this 
 town. They all admit that it's a good idea to fix 
 up nice window displays but they say thev 
 haven t got the time. Of course that's tommy- 
 rot^ They ve got time for anything they want 
 to do. You d think, the way they work it, that 
 there was an open and closed season on window 
 dressing just like there is on quail. 
 
 "A window display is the greatest bargain 
 seller there is. If a bargain is a real bargain 
 all that IS necessary to start it going is to put a 
 nice showing of it into the windows. 
 
 " Pnnted advertising is good. It is fine, but 
 even at its best it can't show the reader the goods 
 in a way that is up to their really seeing them. 
 The pnnted matter describes the goods as well 
 as It can. The window shows them and there 
 can t be any better description of how a thine 
 looks than that. We all like to see what the 
 goods look like before we buy them. 
 
 " Then there are lots of goods that will sell 
 on sight, they're so attractive, but that won't sell 
 at all well on printed advertising. 
 
 " There are a good many ways of making peo- 
 ple want the goods, but none of them are up to 
 
 208 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 displaying them right in the window where 
 everyone going by can see them. 
 
 " Of course if the goods aren't right, showing 
 may not help much toward selling them, but un- 
 less you are in the mail order business, your 
 customers have got to see most of their goods 
 before they take them away. Better have the 
 goods right, no matter how you sell them. 
 
 " You want to learn more about making good 
 window exhibits. Well, you can learn about as 
 well and about as fast from experience as you 
 can in any other way. You don't need to hold 
 yourself down to making one display a week in 
 each of these windows. Make just as many as 
 you have time to get up. I'll bet Barlow won't 
 care much how many times you change displays 
 if it doesn't interfere with your other work." 
 
 " I'd be willing to work nights on the windows 
 if I could get up more of them, for the practice 
 and experience," said Jerry. 
 
 " That's the right spirit to show, young man. 
 If you feel like that and stick to it, you'll suc- 
 ceed all right no matter what you tackle. A 
 man who really wants to learn can learn anything 
 he wants to if he'll give it over-time and lots of 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 "A man ought to be enthusiastic about his 
 work and I don't know of any pleasanter work 
 
 209 
 
 
 I 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 or any that ought to make a man more enthusi- 
 astic than dressing windows. It's a good deal 
 like playing to an audience. YouVe got as big 
 an audience as any they ever have over there in 
 the opera house and you can interest them and 
 make them stop and take notice and you can 
 work upon their feelings until they come in and 
 buy. 
 
 " Then you have a chance to make displays 
 just as beautiful as you want to. In that way 
 it's a good deal like painting a picture. Oh, 
 window dressing is great work and I'd like to be 
 able myself to do it as well as some fellows I've 
 seen work at it. 
 
 "A window is worth something to the store 
 every day just as the newspaper space it buys is 
 worth something every issue of the paper. If 
 a man leaves his window empty a day or half a 
 day unnecessarily, it is just like leaving his news- 
 paper space vacant for an issue. An empty 
 window is costing the store money. No mer- 
 chant would think of paying for newspaper space 
 that he was to leave empty, or that he was going 
 to fill with a lot of jumbled type that wouldn't 
 spell anything. But every little while a store 
 will leave a window empty a day more than is 
 necessary, or it will put into it temporarily a lot 
 of trash that will look badly. 
 
 210 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 "If it is going to take a long time to set up a 
 special display, the material ought to be all got 
 ready and right at hand before the old display is 
 taken out, and a fellow ought to have a little plan 
 on paper of the display he's going to make, so 
 that he can work right along without having to 
 stop and figure out what to do next. 
 
 " I think city merchants realize better than 
 others what their windows are worth. It may be 
 only that the man in the city finds competition 
 so hot that he knows he can't afford to miss any 
 chance for getting business. Anyway you sel- 
 dom see a city store window left empty all day. 
 And the best ones are all trimmed at night so 
 that valuable daytime won't be used up dressing 
 
 them. 
 
 " It's my opinion that the best way to do is to 
 trim the window with the curtain up and let peo- 
 ple see what is going on. Somebody working in 
 the window will have all the effect of a motion 
 display, and nothing stops people any quicker 
 than that. 
 
 " Of course there's a know how, a theory in 
 window dressing that a fellow ought to have if 
 he's going very far in that line and he can get 
 that out of some of the books and lessons pub- 
 lished about it. It's the theory that helps a man 
 to put the right colors together and keep the 
 
 211 
 
 I 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 Material ought to be got ready before the old display I 
 
 taken out,'* 
 
 iS 
 
 212 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 wrong ones apart, to place the goods where they 
 will be the easiest seen and in the light that will 
 show up their good qualities best. I believe that 
 it pays a man to learn the scientific side of his 
 work, whatever it is. Then he knows the rea- 
 sons for things. 
 
 '' These complicated windows that some men 
 get up, gingerbready looking shows that have so 
 much fancy work to them that you can't make 
 head or tail to them without a chart ; they don't 
 sell goods like the simple displays. Simplicity 
 in window displays is a good deal like simplicity 
 in art or in a woman's gown. You know, the 
 most expensive and the most attractive costumes 
 are usually the simplest. 
 
 " Simplicity is easy to understand. It points 
 out something that anyone can see and it points 
 out just one thing and it doesn't confuse the 
 mind. A mixed up window is just like a mixed 
 up advertisement and it's a good deal like these 
 old ' Hats, caps, boot and shoes ' advertisements 
 that our grandfathers used to run. 
 
 " I said for you to keep a scrap-book ; well, 
 I'll advise you to go further and besides saving 
 everything you see printed about windows, write 
 down everything you hear and make a note of 
 every good window display you see in another 
 store. And if I were you and was going on a 
 
 213 
 
 m 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 vacation, I believe Td take in a city or two or 
 some big towns and just make a study of the 
 way they handle their window displays, not only 
 in your line, but in everybody's line, because a 
 jeweler for instance, will often get a good win- 
 dow idea from a cigar store or a grocer from a 
 furniture man and so on." 
 
 " I had thought of Uking a little trip around, 
 kind of on that plan,'' said Jerry. " I was going 
 to the city and then take some trolley trips into 
 big towns around there and look and see what 
 other stores do to get up good looking windows." 
 " Son, you've got the right idea. Keep your 
 eyes opened wide when you're trotting around 
 and you'll see a lot of things that will give you 
 ideas for your use later. But don't think you 
 can remember all the things you see. Set 'em 
 down. You won't be able to turn to 'em when 
 you want 'em if you don't write 'em out. 
 
 "I've seen a lot of different kinds of good 
 windows made with dolls. If you can hit the 
 human idea, put the human touch into a few dolls 
 used in a display, you will stop the people. The 
 nearer you get to a reality in your display, the 
 better. If I were a window dresser, I'd have on 
 hand all the time a whole family of dolls in dif- 
 ferent kinds of costumes and I'd get up window 
 displays that would show actual scenes on a re- 
 
 214 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 duced scale. For one thing, the dolls will get the 
 kids' attention and they'll go home and tell their 
 mothers about them and that means more people 
 coming to look. I think that a supply of dolls 
 is just about as necessary for window dressing 
 as colored crepe paper, and nobody can get along 
 without that occasionally. 
 
 " A fellow's foolish to try to get along with- 
 out window fixtures. It used to be that nobody 
 had any real fixtures for a window except the 
 big department store folks, and they didn't have 
 much. But now anybody can afford some kind 
 of fixtures. You can get them in nickel, or in 
 glass or wood or in wood and glass. You ought 
 to have a few pieces of plate glass too. They'll 
 come in handy. And mirrors will keep people 
 standing in front of the windows longer. The 
 men laugh at the women for their liking to look 
 at themselves in the glass, but I tell you those 
 same men don't miss any chances to do the same 
 thing. Work in a mirror as often as you can 
 where it will give a person on the outside a 
 chance to see himself (or herself) as others see 
 him and you'll make a hit by it every time. 
 
 " There isn't any kind of advertising where 
 it's as important to have the goods advertised of 
 a timely sort and advertised in a timely way as 
 in the windows. Have the goods in the windows 
 
 215 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 that the people are thinking about buying now 
 or in a very short time. Don't fill up the win- 
 dows with goods that sold well last month and 
 that are ancient history now. Keep the windows 
 up to date and then some. The store that shows 
 the advancing season in its windows will get the 
 first demand for the goods. 
 
 " Window displays are made to show the peo- 
 ple what you have to sell and to make them want 
 to buy it. If you keep that in mind you can't 
 go far astray. 
 
 " A window that is made just to look pretty 
 may do that and yet not produce any appreciable 
 amount of business. There must be an idea 
 behind the display. It must send the observer 
 on his way thinking about the goods and carry- 
 mg in his mind some one good point concerning 
 them. Plenty of expensive window shows stop 
 with merely attracting attention. They show 
 freaks or live animals or something in motion and 
 whatever it is, it bears no relation to the goods 
 and the fellow who stops and looks it over goes 
 away thinking about a tame white rat or a ball 
 that rolls around and around. The man who 
 made the display didn't have any connecting link 
 between the attraction and the goods to be adver- 
 tised. The display was a show, not an adver- 
 tisement at all. Shows are all right. I like a 
 
 216 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 good show myself. Put them in the window if 
 you want to, but don't forget that it's business 
 you want more than a curious crowd standing in 
 front in idle curiosity. 
 
 " Drawing a crowd doesn't necessarily mean 
 drawing business, you know. The attraction 
 that doesn't advertise goods is pretty apt to draw 
 a crowd that hasn't much money and is only put- 
 ting in time seeing what can be seen on the 
 street. Better one woman standing in front of 
 a window trying to decide what article to go in 
 and buy than forty men and women and boys 
 haw-hawing over the antics of a monkey and 
 then going on about their business — if they have 
 any. 
 
 " One thing you don't want to forget and that 
 is that the manufacturers that make the goods 
 that sell best in your store are, most of them, 
 ready to help you to get up good window dis- 
 plays of their goods. Lots of those people have 
 ready made displays that only need to be set up. 
 Too many of those ' dummy ' shows are worth 
 just about what they cost you. They are trash. 
 Some aren't and for the good ones I haven't any- 
 thing bad to say, but for the bad ones I haven't 
 anything good to say. 
 
 " If the manufacturer of the line you want to 
 push in the window has not sent you any window 
 
 217 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 matter of use, or information about any, write 
 and ask him what he can do for you. Get up a 
 plan of a window trim and send it to him and ask 
 him what he can do to help you make it a suc- 
 cess. Live, advertising manufacturers are do- 
 ing more and more all the time to help the re- 
 tailer make good displays. They know, better 
 than the retailer himself, what those displays are 
 worth. 
 
 " Say, Where's Barlow ? I didn't come in here 
 to talk an arm off from you about window dress- 
 ing. I wanted to see the boss." 
 
 " He's gone out," said Jerry. '' Vm glad you 
 didn't think of that before or I'd have missed all 
 these pointers. I'm going into this window busi- 
 ness stronger and I'll be up to the house some 
 night to get some more of your good opinions. 
 I'm sure Mr. Barlow will let me do anything I 
 want to about the windows and I'm thinking of 
 making some improvements in the construction 
 of them." 
 
 '\ That's right, Jerry. When you see a chance 
 to improve the store or the service in it, you put 
 it up to the boss every time. He'll appreciate it 
 and it won't do you any harm either. Well, tell 
 him that you saw me. So long ! " 
 
 218 
 
 FIFTEENTH TALK 
 
 DEVELOPING HIGH CLASS TRADE 
 
 "Well, where the dickens are you going?" 
 Tobias asked Barlow as the latter walked into 
 the smoking car and took a seat beside the Old 
 Storekeeper who was already comfortably located 
 and waiting for the afternoon New York train to 
 
 pull out. 
 
 " Oh, I'm going on a little errand that you 
 told me a while ago I'd better do one of these 
 
 days." 
 
 " Oh, I see. Well, you have my best washes 
 for a successful trip. Bring her back with you 
 
 if you can." 
 
 " I'll do my best," replied Barlow. " By the 
 way, I'm going to be in the city over a day and 
 I believe I'll look up a jobber or two and see if 
 I can't get hold of one that carries a higher class 
 of goods than those fellows we've been buying 
 
 of for years." 
 
 " That's a mighty good idea, John. When I 
 was in business we always thought that as long 
 
 219 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 "Barlow walked into the smoking car," 
 
 220 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 as a wholesale house treated us right we had to 
 buy everything from them and never look at 
 any other line. That isn't the way to do it now 
 though. It does well enough to buy from one 
 house as much as you can and keep them inter- 
 ested in you, but a man's a fool if he doesn't see 
 what the other houses can do for him. 
 
 " And then, as you say, these people youVe 
 been buying from don't carry as high class a line 
 as they might and you can't develop the business 
 in their kinds of goods unless you get in the way 
 of offering better and better goods all the time. 
 You want to keep hitching the quality of your 
 line up all the time. If you keep just the same 
 grade of goods year after year, your customers 
 will buy just that grade as long as they are sat- 
 isfied with it and go to some other store when 
 they want something better. 
 
 " Of course you might not have any call for 
 a better article in any line than you are keeping, 
 but one of your customers who thought he was 
 perfectly satisfied with your kind of goods might 
 get into another store and be shown something 
 that would look better, taste better, wear better 
 or be more stylish and he would willingly pay 
 more for it and keep on buying that better grade 
 while you wondered why you had lost his trade. 
 
 "And about the first step to take in prepar- 
 
 221 
 
if 
 
 ii 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 ing to raise the class of your stock and conse- 
 quently to improve the class of your customers, 
 is to get to buying from better people, people 
 who handle classier goods." 
 
 "Well," said Barlow, "I didn't have it all 
 thought out like that but I had about come to the 
 same conclusion. I've been getting a first class 
 business since you got me started up the hill 
 again but I don't seem to be getting the best 
 families in town. I don't know who is getting 
 them. I have an idea that they are sending 
 away for a lot of the goods they use because they 
 can't get them in Hampton." 
 
 " You're on the right track, my boy. It's the 
 old story of a man not being able to sell the 
 goods if he doesn't have 'em. This idea that 
 nothing will sell except what we are already 
 having a call for is all bosh. There's a lot more 
 merchants stuck with buying cheap trash than 
 ever got stuck by buying goods that are too good. 
 " Of course the big business is the business of 
 the masses, the average folks who don't have a 
 whole lot of money, but all the same the trade 
 of the people who do have money is mighty nice 
 trade and in a big town a man can sometimes get 
 along with nothing else. There's quite a lot of 
 families in Hampton that have money enough to 
 buy the best of things. If you're selling them 
 
 222 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 cheaper grades, it's because you don't have the 
 better ones or don't call their attention to them. 
 
 "A little time spent in explaining to a man 
 how and why this better article will give him bet- 
 ter service and save him money will make money 
 for you and make satisfied customers too because 
 when a fellow gets the goods home he thinks of 
 their quality of tener than he does of their cost. 
 
 " Besides the best quality interesting the peo- 
 ple with the most money it generally interests 
 the careful buyers who don't have much money. 
 The man who has good, sound judgment and a 
 slim pocketbook is pretty apt to buy as good a 
 grade of goods as he can afford because he 
 knows it pays him. 
 
 "Of course it takes time to make sales of 
 better goods. That is, when you ask a man to 
 pay more money than he has been in the habit 
 of paying for an article for a certain purpose, he 
 is going to want to know why and wherefore. 
 He won't just take your word off-hand that the 
 goods are better and consequently cheaper in the 
 end. You will have to show him that they are 
 better and that they will save him money. That 
 means that you've got to be posted on the quality 
 and the reasons for it in the case of the better 
 goods. A man ought to know all about the 
 goods he sells anyway. He can't be much of a 
 
 223 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 salesman along any line unless he is wise on his 
 stock. 
 
 "And if a merchant is going to push high 
 class goods and cater to the high grade trade, he 
 has got to have high class help. Cheap, careless, 
 ignorant, sloppy clerks can't get or hold the 
 trade of high class efficient people who know 
 quality in a man when they see it, as well as in 
 goods. Why, look at this conductor coming! 
 Couldn't you tell by the way he walks and by the 
 looks of his uniform that he's working on a first 
 rate train? There's something about him that 
 shows it. 
 
 "A good many merchants think of the high 
 class trade as the trade of millionaires. This is 
 a mistake. Such people usually buy the best 
 grade of goods and belong in the best class of 
 customers, but the high class trade includes any- 
 body who will buy high class articles. 
 
 " These people who pay more money usually 
 give their buying more consideration. They 
 take more time to it. Sometimes they are pretty 
 finicky, but it's worth while to bear with their 
 peculiarities. It pays." 
 
 " I have some of that kind of customers all 
 right," said Barlow. "You know old Granny 
 Bitters, and Joe Potts ? " 
 
 " Yes, they're finicky. No doubt about it, but 
 
 224 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 they're the sort that are finicky by nature, not by 
 pocketbook. They're just naturally too stingy to 
 live. Why, you know the time Billy Finnegin 
 ordered a cord of wood from Joe Potts and told 
 him that it must be tip-top wood or he wouldn't 
 pay for it ? No ! Well Joe brought the cord of 
 wood and it was the worst looking ' buzz-wood ' 
 you ever saw; all little bits of sticks about an 
 inch or two through. Of course Billy kicked 
 but what do you think Joe told him? Why, he 
 said ' Didn't you say you wanted tip-top wood ? 
 If you can get any that comes from nearer the 
 tip top of the trees you can't get it o' me.' 
 
 "One thing that's worth learning about the 
 best trad^ is that you are wasting time and los- 
 ing trade by trying to sell them something they 
 don't want. I just believe that the best sales- 
 manship with the millionaire class is giving them 
 what they ask for and asking no question and 
 telling no lies. Those people want high grade, 
 standard advertised goods. They know what 
 they want — or they think they do — and you 
 just make 'em mad by trying to sell them some- 
 thing just as good. 
 
 " They aren't as a rule personal acquaintances 
 that you have any drag with. You're their mer- 
 chant. They decide what they want and all they 
 want you to do is to deliver the goods." 
 
 225 
 
 /■ 
 
 iMjgii.JiTijn.igj . 
 
^=v 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 "Didn't you say you wanted tip-top wood?" 
 
 226 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " I've had a few little experiences with such 
 people/' admitted Barlow. "There's Mrs. 
 Loftis. Once or twice she came in and wanted 
 some goods we don't carry and I tried to get her 
 to let me show her something else of the same 
 kind. Not for a minute! I couldn't get the 
 goods off the shelf before she was outside get- 
 ting into her automobile." 
 
 "Well, there you've got it. That's just the 
 way those people feel about the things they want. 
 You may have something just as good. You 
 may have something even better, but it's mighty 
 seldom you get a chance to sell it to them if you 
 don't have what they came for. A fellow's got 
 to carry the advertised brands nowadays. They 
 will go a long way toward helping him to get the 
 best trade. 
 
 " A man has got to be careful too about his 
 advertising if he wants it to attract such people. 
 You know yourself that it wouldn't do to adver- 
 tise the classiest goods in the store on a big, 
 cheap poster that looks like a fire sale sheet. 
 And it doesn't get you anything to use that same 
 fire sale style in the newspapers either. The ad- 
 vertising of high grade goods ought to be high 
 grade advertising. It ought to read like high 
 class talk and it ought to look like high class 
 printing. This is the truest of the kind of ad- 
 
 227 
 
 i^ 
 
 #: 
 ^ 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 vertisements you send right to the people by mail. 
 
 " If you aren't willing to have your store 
 judged by the advertisement, don't you send it 
 out. Just think over the advertising that comes 
 to you every day or so and see if you don't 
 pretty near size up a house by the kind of printed 
 matter it sends out. 
 
 '' High class advertising to high class folks 
 ought to have more white space on it. It ought 
 to have a more dignified tone. The type ought 
 not to be so black or so circus-postery. I never 
 was very strong for a lot of dignity in advertis- 
 ing. I believe in pretty plain talk, but there's a 
 happy medium. The too dignified advertising 
 doesn't get enough readers and the sensational 
 kind is passed right by by the high class trade. 
 It gives your store a cheap reputation with them 
 and it is pretty hard to get rid of such a reputa- 
 tion with folks who want ' Tiffany ' on their sta- 
 tionery and silverware boxes and ' Park and Til- 
 ford ' on their groceries. 
 
 ''You don't want to be subservient to the 
 aristocratic customers. They do not think any 
 more of a man because he gets down on his 
 knees and begs them to buy from him. But you 
 do want to be respectful and show some consid- 
 eration for their opinions and a great deal of 
 appreciation for their trade. I tell you human 
 
 228 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 nature's just the same in a millionaire as it is in 
 a truck driver. People are born sensitive or 
 selfish, generous or grouchy. It ain't money 
 that makes 'em so. When you get right down to 
 it, it's the man you're dealing with and not his 
 pocketbook. If you get to the man, you'll get 
 to his pocketbook all right, all right. 
 
 "There isn't any much better way of adver- 
 tising to the best families and to the best class of 
 trade of all kinds than by actual typewritten 
 personal letters. Suppose you pick out a dozen 
 people whose trade you are very anxious to get 
 and just write each of them a personal letter 
 every two weeks for a little while, calling their 
 special attention to some certain thing that you 
 know they might use but that they maybe don't 
 know that you sell. That is sure to get under 
 their belt. Anyone will read a real letter. And 
 after you get the interest of most of the first 
 lot, take up another little list and work it in the 
 same way. Give 'em personal attention and 
 they'll give you personal attention. 
 
 " There is a class of trade that is really a part 
 of the high class kind that wants what it buys 
 to show its value right on the face of it. It has 
 money to spend, that class, and it wants everyone 
 to know it. People like that need to be given a 
 show for their money. They like ostentation 
 
 229 
 
 t , 
 
 
n 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 and flash. If those people want to buy their 
 high priced goods right out in the middle of the 
 store so that everyone can see what they are 
 spending, help them to do it. If you do you will 
 make them buy more yet. When such people 
 get to spending they buy easily and they don't 
 stop to ask too many questions. Help them to 
 go their limit. 
 
 " But there is another class that buys less 
 flashy goods but even more expensive ones. 
 These people want actual value rather than show. 
 They want the finest quality and they are dis- 
 criminating. And they don't want their pur- 
 chases advertised on the housetops. They are 
 quiet, refined, sensitive people who would rather 
 buy in a quiet corner where they can discuss the 
 goods without outsiders hearing or seeing what 
 is going on. Learn to know these people and to 
 please them and you'll get their money to put 
 with that of the new-rich. 
 
 " Sometimes rich people have idiosyncrasies 
 that are worth studying. They have their little 
 pet economies. They have never paid more than 
 a certain amount for this or that necessity of 
 housekeeping. True, they could just as well pay 
 ten times the price and never feel it but they 
 like to economize in those certain ways. And 
 very likely they do not care to have everyone 
 
 230 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 know it. Show such feeling a proper consider- 
 ation and keep them coming where they do not 
 have to explain everytime what they want and 
 whv they buy the cheaper brand. 
 
 "It is a good plan to see that all the clerks, 
 especially the new ones learn the names of these 
 local ' Four hundred ' folks. It saves a good 
 many uncomfortable occurrences if the new clerk 
 does not make any bad break with the Money- 
 bags family when their purchasing agent comes 
 
 '" People with money, the same as people with- 
 out it, like to be called by name when they come 
 to the store. It gives them a feelmg of im- 
 portance and makes them want to come agam. 
 It is easy to instruct the older clerks to mention 
 certain customers' names to the new help when- 
 ever a chance offers. 
 
 « If you have goods to deliver to customers 
 who like style, don't send them around m a 
 cheap, dirty cart pulled by a broken down nag 
 Don't send them by a barefoot boy with ragged 
 clothes. Whatever kind of delivery you are 
 using, make it look as if the store had some snap 
 behind it. A few brass buttons and a natty cap 
 will go a long way toward making a styhsh de- 
 
 *^" Why, if I was running a store that had its 
 
 231 
 
 I 
 
 "! 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 delivering done by a small boy outside of school 
 hours, I'd have a jacket and cap for him that 
 would make him look like business style. The 
 trouble isn't that storekeepers can't afford to 
 look after these little things that count but that 
 they don't think of it. You think, ' Gee ! I can't 
 afford a liveried delivery!' perhaps, but how 
 much would a cap and a jacket and a box of shoe 
 polish cost ? I tell you it will pay a man to look 
 after these matters pretty closely if he is anx- 
 ious to get the trade of the people who have the 
 most money. 
 
 "One thing that the best class of trade de- 
 mands is that you make no mistakes with them. 
 You can make mistakes in sending goods to your 
 friends and they'll say ' That's all right. Acci- 
 dents will happen' but by George! when you 
 make a mistake on Mr. Bank Account's order 
 you'll hear from him with a call down that will 
 make you think you're in the hands of the law. 
 Mr. B. A. hasn't any more right to call you down 
 than your friend perhaps. His money isn't any 
 better, but there's more of it and he's used to 
 having people step lively when he speaks and 
 he's used to having things done the way he or- 
 ders them done. If you can't do them that way, 
 you'll mighty quick find yourself minus his 
 patronage. 
 
 232 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " It may be foolish for him to act that way. 
 I'm not holding any brief for him, but he does 
 do it and when we're going after trade we have 
 to deal with facts as they are and not as they 
 
 ought to be. 
 
 "Now, you've got a good premium scheme 
 working.' Don't think for a minute that your 
 best trade doesn't know or care anything about 
 it. Something for nothing appeals just about as 
 strongly to one person as to another. See that 
 the people who are entitled to checks for premi- 
 ums get them. The folks who have money may 
 be even more bashful about kicking when you 
 forget than those who haven't and they may try 
 to make it look as if they didn't care, but they 
 
 do just the same." 
 
 "I've noticed that much already," said Bar- 
 low. "The women who have the most money 
 are the most anxious to get a bargain or to get a 
 free premium. I do all I can to encourage 
 
 them." 
 
 "You're on the right track and — say, what 
 station is this? Hey, conductor, let me out! 
 This is my stop!" and Tobias grabbed his bag 
 and rushed for the door as the conductor pulled 
 the bell rope and slowed the train down just as it 
 was almost out of the yards. 
 
 " I knew he meant to get off here," said the 
 
 233 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 conductor to Barlow, "but I didn't notice he 
 hadn't till we started up and I came in here. 
 Pretty keen old chap, that/' 
 
 " You bet he is," said Barlow. " Nobody's 
 got anything on him in the storekeeping line," and 
 he turned to see Tobias waving his hand from 
 the bank beside the last switch block. 
 
 234 
 
 SIXTEENTH TALK 
 
 SELF-SELLING GOODS 
 
 The Old Storekeeper was kept away from 
 home longer than he had expected to remain and 
 it was some three weeks later than our last chap- 
 ter when at last he returned. 
 
 One of the first things his wife told him was 
 that John Barlow had come back and brought 
 his wife with him. 
 " His wife! " ejaculated Tobias. 
 " Why yes," said his better half, 
 away and got married to Dolly 
 brought her right home with him." 
 " Well, ril be — " 
 " Tobias ! " 
 
 " Well, anyway I'll be jiggered! I went away 
 on the same train with John and he said he was 
 going to try to make up a quarrel he'd had with 
 Dolly but he didn't say anything about getting 
 
 married." 
 
 " Probably he didn't. When you were coming 
 
 235 
 
 " He went 
 Dingle and 
 
■< 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 out to Illinois to marry me did you shout it at 
 everybody you met on the road ? " 
 
 "Well, pretty near. I remember telling the 
 conductor and the brakeman on the train." 
 
 " John's got an awfully pretty wife," said Mrs. 
 Jenkins. 
 
 "Yes, and he's got a wife that's something 
 more than just pretty, if I'm any judge. Dolly 
 Dingle, I mean Dolly — Mrs. Barlow, knows a 
 thing or two about a business like John's and I'll 
 bet she'll give him some pointers that'll do him 
 good. I'm going down and see him, or them, 
 whichever it happens to be." 
 
 So Tobias hurried down to the store and 
 found that it was "them" sure enough, for 
 Dolly was at work in the store rearranging, or 
 rather directing the rearranging of stock, while 
 John sat in his revolving office chair trying to 
 work at his books but looking rather foolish 
 when he saw Tobias come in. 
 
 After the greetings that the occasion de- 
 manded were over between the three, Mrs. Bar- 
 low said, 
 
 " Mr. Jenkins, I've been wanting to ask you 
 something ever since I got back and have been 
 helping John here. Now, we have a fine stock 
 of standard goods but we seem to be short on 
 the odds and ends, the lines that sell themselves 
 
 236 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 and that bring people in and give them a chance 
 to see what else we have. I've been talking the 
 five, ten and twenty-five cent idea to John but he 
 seems to think it would cheapen our store to 
 handle a lot of such goods and I don't know but 
 he's right. What do you think about it ? " 
 
 " You put it right square up to me, don't you ? 
 The last time I was talking to John it was about 
 a very different line of goods. We were dis- 
 cussing the ways of getting the higher priced 
 and higher qualities of stock to sell better and it 
 may be that anything I say in favor of the bar- 
 gain counter idea may look as if it gave that 
 
 other talk the lie. 
 
 " In the first place I'm going to admit right 
 off the reel that if a man is catering exclusively, 
 exclusively mind you, to the high class trade, 
 he'd better leave out anything like the five, ten 
 and twenty-five cent counters, bargain base- 
 ment, etc. He'd better stick to class. But in 
 Hampton and most other towns there isn't 
 enough of the exclusive high class trade to make 
 a business a success on that alone. It's only in 
 the big city that there is, and even there if a man 
 wants to build up a really big business he needs 
 the trade of everybody he can get to come into 
 
 the store. 
 
 " You want the high class trade and you want 
 
 237 
 
 W>i 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 the trade of the so called ' common people.' 
 
 TofilT T" ^"' ''''"' ^°*^- ^^^P '^^ goods 
 wonV K i"''"^" '"'*°'"'''^ •" P^^^^« where they 
 
 TrLin .. r'i'^ ^^ ^''''' comparison with 
 bargain stock. Have your classiest goods by 
 themselves where the people who are buying 
 
 W tlT^^ *'^" V^^^'^'' — «<! way/and 
 have the bargam goods collected in places where 
 
 they won t bring any discomfort from crowding 
 
 ZsTu "^*^t^P"- "Pon the few custom' 
 ers you have of the most aristocratic class. 
 
 1 believe m a separate bargain department 
 for bargam goods, but you aren't in shape to 
 hand! th,t here just now, so you can develop 
 separate bargam tables or counters. 
 
 Just as soon as you can afford to enlarge 
 your store, plan a big section to be devoted to 
 
 sem;^,' *^""*y-fi^^ <=^"t goods of the quick 
 sdhng, hve wire sort. Those goods don't tie up 
 much money and they turn over fast. They 
 make you rather small profits perhaps but they 
 
 a^^hfs^re.^^* °^ *^^- -^ ^^^^ -^"g people 
 
 soltJV^ general stores and big and successful 
 special Stores are losing unnecessary trade to 
 pmpeting departments in other stores that carry 
 IH'I ^f -celling goods to bring the people 
 mto their places of business. 
 
 238 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 " You probably may not want to stick in a 
 five cent or a ten cent^ counter anywhere in your 
 store in a way to give any cheapening look to the 
 place, but that does not interfere with your dis- 
 playing on a table there a line of attractive 
 goods with a big ' Your choice for a nickel ' over 
 them, or over in another corner a line of ten cent 
 goods similarly arranged. And a twenty-five 
 cent counter is not cheap enough to be called 
 shoddy in any sense. 
 
 " No matter what sort of a store a man is 
 running, he can make it pay in many ways to 
 have one or more tables or counters where he 
 displays a line of goods at twenty-five cents for 
 your choice. A ' quarter ' is a popular price for 
 innumerable things and it may include not only 
 the goods that sell for that much apiece, but also 
 those that sell two or three or more for a ' quar- 
 ter.' 
 
 " Such a counter serves as an outlet for a good 
 many pieces of goods that are really higher 
 priced but that need to be closed out for what 
 they will bring. Still nobody wants to think for 
 a minute that a special price counter loaded with 
 dead stock will be a success just because- that 
 dead stock is marked 'way down. If there is 
 any department in a store that needs new, live 
 goods, it is the bargain department, whether that 
 
 239 
 
 li 
 
 iii 
 
 f 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 department is a whole floor or just a little table 
 
 m one comer. 
 
 if 
 
 ^ Some merchants' idea of a bargain display 
 m the window or anywhere is a pile of old stock 
 just thrown in together looking as if it was right 
 from the scrap heap. They don't realize that 
 the older the goods and the worse their actual 
 condition, the more care ought to be used in 
 making them look good to the public. 
 
 " In order to make a success of any kind of a 
 bargam department the merchant must not be 
 afraid to pay for leaders to use in that depart- 
 ment. Anybody can pay from $1.50 to $2 for 
 goods to sell on a 25c counter and make a little 
 money on them, but that sort of work will not 
 make much of a success of the proposition. 
 You must be willing and ready to pay $2.75 or 
 $3.50 for a few goods and $2.25 for many and 
 you must have the face to put in with them some 
 that cost no more than $1.25. 
 
 " It is the average of profit that you are con- 
 cerned with. Suppose there is a loss on one 
 sale. If it is more than made up by the next 
 sale which is due directly to the losing sale, you 
 are ahead in the end. The five and ten cent 
 stores get their business by giving bargains. 
 I hey do not advertise much in the newspapers. 
 Ihey employ cheap help and give poor service, 
 
 240 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 but their leaders do their advertising for them 
 and you don't need to have me tell you that they 
 make money. You can make money selling 
 some things at less than they cost you just the 
 same as those five and ten cent stores. An oc- 
 casional leader that will make people sit up and 
 take notice will do more real advertising for 
 your store than the same amount of money spent 
 in almost any other way. 
 
 " You see, a good advertisement will bring in 
 a lot of the people who read it, but not many of 
 them will say anything about it to anyone else- 
 Every woman that gets a good bargain will tell 
 her neighbors about it and it will go right along 
 down the line, helping boost your store as it 
 
 goes. 
 
 "Why, talk about bargains, I've known a 
 merchant to buy a couple of hundred umbrellas 
 at thirty-five to forty cents apiece and advertise 
 them for sale at ten cents each on a certain day. 
 I've known a store to sell 250 heavy iron shovels 
 in seventeen minutes as an advertising stunt, get- 
 ting ten cents apiece for them when they cost 
 several times that. It takes a little nerve to put 
 on a thing like that, but when you look at it as 
 advertising and charge the loss up to the adver- 
 tising expense, it doesn't look so bad. 
 
 " There is a lot of self-selling merchandise that 
 
 241 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 doesn't belong in the five, ten and twenty-five 
 cent class. The manufacturers of many novel- 
 ties put their goods up on display cards and if 
 the dealer buys full dozens or whatever number 
 come on a card, he will get the advantage of the 
 display and if these goods are set out where they 
 show they will move oflF without much help Of 
 course some of these display cards or racks are 
 pretty cheap looking afl^airs and don't add anv 
 to the class of the goods on them, but you can 
 cut out that kind. The trouble with these dis- 
 play cards in most stores is that they are allowed 
 to get soiled and broken before the stock is all 
 sold and the last of the lot drags terriblv because 
 beside having lost its novelty it is handicapped 
 by being shown on a card that looked like the 
 last run of shad and would prejudice anybody 
 against gold dollars marked 50c each. 
 
 "When the card the goods are shown on 
 advertises the fact that the stock is old and 
 moving slowly and advertises it louder than it 
 advertises the merits of the goods, the goods 
 won t go. Depend upon it ; the people notice 
 those things. A fly-specked show card half full 
 of some 25c novelty may have been there on 
 the show case so long that the proprietor of the 
 store doesn't notice it any more than he'd notice 
 a wart on his nose after wearing it forty years, 
 
 242 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 but that doesn't prevent other folks from notic- 
 ing the disadvantageous side of the aflfair. 
 
 " When the show card or rack gets soiled and 
 can't be cleaned up, it must be destroyed and the 
 goods given their chance in a tray if they cannot 
 be put on a fresh card of some sort. It is worth 
 while for you to save display cards that don't 
 get broken and by pasting a catchy picture on 
 them or covering them with clean paper, use them 
 again in the place of one that has to be thrown 
 out before the goods are gone. 
 
 "And that reminds me that I saw a lot of 
 home made display cards and racks the other day 
 on the show case in a store down the line. This 
 merchant had made cards out of old display 
 easels by recovering them and pasting pictures 
 from magazines on them. He took some arti- 
 cles that didn't come on a card but that were ad- 
 vertised in the magazines and he pasted on an 
 old card the advertisement cut out of the mag- 
 azine and printed a price on it and put the goods 
 on and set it out. This was a pretty good 
 scheme. You see, it connected up in the cus- 
 tomer's mind right away the goods with the ad- 
 vertisement he'd seen. It worked out well and 
 
 he was pretty clever about making good looking 
 csscls. 
 
 " Displaying goods is what makes them self- 
 
 243 
 
 I 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 A sleepy old grocer with no regard for cleanliness or 
 
 order." 
 
 244 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 selling in reality. The article that is tucked away 
 in a drawer or a cupboard will not sell itself. 
 Someone may come in and ask for it but that 
 sale was made outside of the store by some kind 
 of advertisement or other method of creating de- 
 mand. By self-selling I mean selling itself to a 
 customer who did not come in to buy that article 
 but saw it and was pleased with it and decided to 
 buy, all with no assistance from the clerk. 
 
 '' So you see, self-selling goods have got to be 
 displayed or they won't be self-selling. And of 
 course the better you display them, the better 
 they'll sell the more of 'em will sell. 
 
 " They ought to be kept clean and made to 
 look their very best because the better the goods 
 look to buyers, the quicker they will buy. When 
 you drop into a store to buy a cigar, do you feel 
 like picking up one from a box on top of the 
 case, when its broken and dusty lid advertises 
 the fact that it has taken a month to sell a part 
 of the box? Or do you, Mrs. Barlow, like to 
 buy fruit of a sleepy old grocer with no regard 
 for cleanliness or order? Of course you don't. 
 Even the man who runs a dirty store (I don't 
 mean you, John), likes to do his own buying in 
 a clean store. The man whose self-selling mer- 
 chandise isn't self-selling by a long shot, buys 
 the self-selling merchandise that he wants in 
 
 245 
 
 ,=( 
 
 \ 
 
 ■i. 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 other stores where they do display it the right 
 way. 
 
 ''The merchant doesn't think. That's what 
 makes his self-sellers turn into stickers when the 
 lot is half gone. The man who doesn't think 
 is right in the same class with the man that 
 didn't know it was loaded and the man that 
 rocked the boat. I haven't any special use for 
 any of 'em and I never knew of one who made 
 a success on what he was trying to do. I'll tell 
 you right now, Mrs. Barlow, I don't consider 
 your husband one of that kind. He's a pretty 
 good business man and if you stick right to him 
 with plenty of good advice, he's sure to make 
 a merchant prince of himself one of these days 
 and then you'll be glad you married him." 
 
 " Oh, I'm glad now," said the bride blushing. 
 " He makes a fine husband and I always did think 
 he was a good business man." 
 
 '' Yes, I know," said Tobias, " all women think 
 their husbands are fine business men, but it isn't 
 because the women know so much about busi- 
 ness usually, it's because the men are their hus- 
 bands. I wouldn't go far in accepting a man's 
 business reputation from his wife. I wouldn't 
 be surprised though in your case if your opinion 
 might be worth something because you are a 
 business woman. It isn't very often a business 
 
 246 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 woman marries a business man. I don't know 
 why that is. I'm not going to say whether it's 
 because the business woman does or does not 
 know more about business men than other 
 women. 
 
 " But you're going to find that John will make 
 a lot of business mistakes. Every business man 
 does. He probably won't make many that will 
 do much harm, but he's liable to make occa- 
 sional ones that will cost him and you some 
 money. Just make up your mind right at the 
 outset that he isn't perfect and that while he is 
 doing his level best and using the best judgment 
 he has, still he will go wrong at times. I wouldn't 
 give a cent for a man who never made any 
 mistakes. The only way a man can be safe from 
 them is by never doing anything but the same 
 old things he's always done. Any man who tries 
 new plans and tries to advance will make mis- 
 takes. Let him make 'em. You stand right by 
 him and help him get over the mistakes he makes 
 and he'll be all right. 
 
 " A woman can help her husband in his store 
 in more ways than just by getting into the store 
 and tearing things all to pieces. She has good 
 judgment in the matter of arrangement and dec- 
 oration and she ought to help the man with that 
 judgment. I don't have but mighty little use for 
 
 247 
 
i 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 a woman who doesn't help any about her hus- 
 band's business except by spending the money 
 it makes. If she isn't really interested in his 
 work, in his way of making money for her to 
 spend, it is awfully poor policy and awfully 
 poor business for her to show it. 
 
 " She ought at least to put up a bluff that she 
 is interested. You can't blame a husband for 
 getting a little sore if his wife never asks him 
 anything about his work and expects him to 
 spend all the time at home at noon or at supper 
 time listening to what she's been doing to have 
 a good time while he's been working. 
 
 '* Then I know wives who never think of ask- 
 ing their husbands when they come home to 
 dinner what their work or their difficulties of the 
 day have been, but they sit there and pour into 
 patient ears all the little penny worries of the 
 household, the whole bunch of which don't 
 amount to a row of pins compared with the re- 
 sponsibility of some one transaction the husband 
 has had on his mind for days. 
 
 " It's the fashion nowadays for women to 
 claim to be the equal of men in business and 
 other affairs. I don't say whether I think they 
 are or aren't, but I do say that a woman needn't 
 tell me that she is entitled to share alike with 
 her husband in all the advantages that result 
 
 248 
 
 More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 from his business, when she isn't willing to 
 share in any of its responsibilities. Of course 
 women have their responsibilities at home. The 
 woman with a household to manage needs a busi- 
 ness head to handle it properly and there is 
 plenty of worry about the work, but the tendency 
 is for the man with a store to try to get money 
 enough so that his wife won't have to do any 
 more of the household managing than is neces- 
 sary and the more he tries to accomplish this, 
 the more work he himself will have and the more 
 sympathy and help he ought to have from his 
 wife. 
 
 "Of course a man needs a change when he 
 leaves his store and comes home, but I don't 
 know as it's such an agreeable change to be in- 
 vited to come home three times a day or twice 
 or once to listen to a record of the household's 
 tribulations after they are all over and settled 
 up. 
 
 " The wife who meets her husband when he 
 comes home and greets him with a smile and a 
 sympathetic inquiry that rub out the care and 
 worry lines from his face will find him pretty 
 ready to listen to any account of the troubles 
 she's had and I advise 'em both, tq get to some 
 pleasanter subject as.fsoon^as they cum ;V* 
 
 " It's all right for you two young honey- 
 
 « I 
 
 . • .« ^rlgf " • 
 
 k • • ■ <* 
 
 I » 
 
 »■ - ' • 
 
 J 
 > t 
 
 
 « 
 
 
 I 
 
 t > 
 
 t c 
 
 • 1 
 
 « • 
 
 • t 
 
More Talks by the Old Storekeeper 
 
 mooners to stand there and giggle and you prob- 
 ably think I got this out of a page of the ' Ladies' 
 Home Journal/ but I didn't. It's the best kind 
 of business sense and you'll know it as well as 
 I do when you've lived as long. A man's busi- 
 ness success is more dependent upon the happi- 
 ness of his family life than you have any idea. 
 But I'm not worrying any about you folks. 
 You'll get along all right and I wish you both 
 many happy returns of your wedding day. Now 
 I've got to go home and explain to my wife why 
 I stayed away so long on that last trip. Come 
 up and take dinner with us Sunday, will you? 
 Good bye." 
 
 THE END 
 
 I • 
 
 2SO- 
 
 • • ». 
 
 Talks by the Old Storekeepe 
 
 By FRANK FARRINGTON 
 Every Retailer Needs TALKS 
 
 Talks by the Old Storekeeper is a volume of 
 200 pages (4i/^x6H). Twenty-three chapters of 
 straight-from-the-shoulder talk about the 
 . management of a store. It tells about 
 
 The displaying of goods inside the store. 
 
 The dressing of windows, giving practical 
 Ideas of what to put in and what not to put in. 
 
 Ihe handling of clerks so as to make them 
 of the most value to themselves and to their 
 employer. 
 
 The honesty and dishonesty of employees 
 and how to help them to keep straight 
 
 Having a right place for everything and 
 where that place is. 
 
 Advertising of all kinds, with good, straight 
 talk on how to use the newspapers. 
 
 ^ How to keep the local trade from going to the 
 city or to a mail order house. 
 
 The Old Storekeeper's experiences with the 
 money-back-if-you-want-it plan. 
 
 Some experiences in selling goods at cost, 
 with the results. 
 
 A woman's ideas on how a store should be 
 run to get her trade. 
 
 Prices; what kind of prices to use, how to 
 use them, and when and where. 
 
 Salesmanship, and the ways to make pleased 
 and satisfied customers. 
 
 r.JLKt "^"^'' ^of any business man, and at five times its 
 price no merchant can afford to be without it— £. F 
 Htxson Htxson, Texas. 
 
 Sent Postpaid for $1.00 Honey Order or Stamps 
 
 BYXBEB PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 440 So. Dearborn Stroot CHICAGO 
 
, I 
 
 Back in the Harness 
 
 A Sequel Co TALKS BT THE OLD STOREKEEPER 
 
 If 70« bave had "Talk*" tUs woa't disappaiat joa. 
 
 II yoa kaTca't hU *Talk$/' taka this opportvaity aari get tke twa mw. 
 
 Tobias Jenkins goes back into business, opens a new 
 store and tells how he built up a good trade out of nothing 
 —with some handicaps. This book is a money-maker for 
 any man with a store. It contains a lot of pointers on spe- 
 cial sales, store management, clerk handling, advertising and 
 all the other things you are interested in. 
 ^^ t\i\ Sent on receipt of price. Examine the book 
 M Jl ^UU ^^^ '^ "°* entirely satisfactory return it to 
 ■ us and get your money back. 
 
 THE CLERKS' BOOK 
 
 4x5^ iochet— 96 pafcs 
 MUCH IN LITTLE." This book contains more real 
 meat for the clerk than a whole library of volumes of "Sales- 
 manship." Many employers have thought so well of it that 
 they have bought one for each clerk in their employ; and 
 clerks have been so impressed by the teachings that they 
 have written the author that it has been the means oi their 
 securing increased salaries through increased efficiency. 
 Mr. Farrington, who wrote the book, says to the elerks: 
 "Keep the book handy by the counter or in your pocket and 
 pick it up at odd moments. Don't try to read it all through 
 at once. Read a little at a time and then think it over. If 
 your employer objects to your reading it during working 
 hours, let me know. Fll write to him. " 
 
 JOHN MARTIN'S CLERKS 
 
 4x5 M iachet— 92 pages 
 This is a novel — a very unusual novel. It is a story in 
 which is mingled love, honesty, dishonesty, a few poker 
 games, automobile rides, etc. It holds the interest from 
 start to finish. It is a story with a moral, but the moral is 
 absorbed unconsciously. It is well 
 worth reading, and after you have 
 read it once you will want to read 
 it again. 
 
 BTXBEE PUBUSHING CO.. 440 S<i. DetfbMi St.. CikBf 
 
 niurai, dui cne moral is 
 
 50c each 
 
 Store Management-Complete 
 
 Frank Farrington** 'N^vr^mt Baok 
 A Companion Book to "Retail Adyertising — Complete'' 
 
 "Retail Advertisins— Complete" tells all about advertising a retai 1 
 •tore. Not only newspaper advertisintf. but eTerything in the way of ad- 
 vertising that will help increase sales. "Store Mansgetnent— Com- 
 plete tells all about the management of a store so that not only the 
 greatest sales but the largest profit may be realized. Nearly 2,000 
 copies of Retail Advertising— Complete" have already been sold. 
 
 *"n if ****'***''"** *^"* ***" "*® ®^ "Store Management— Complete" 
 will Iba much larger, as it treats of a much broader subject. 
 
 SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I— The Maa Hiaiself— Mental and physical qualifica- 
 tions. How to be a merchant. Overwork and its disadvantages. Suc- 
 cess making qualities. 
 
 CHAPTER II— Wh«re to Start— Advantages of various locations. 
 Mow to make the most of a poor location. Owning or renting. Which 
 side jf^y^e^rect. Buying a store. How to avoid pitfalls in buying. 
 
 UMArrfcR HI— Store Arraagement— Making entrance easy. Best 
 arrangement of windows. How to plan the lighting. Heat and ventila- 
 
 ****"Vu7SJi?i^S*?w°^^°"".l*'"»' shelving, departments, etc. 
 
 CHAPTER IV— The Bnyiag End— Knowing what to buy. About 
 quantity discounts. Taking cash discounts. Keeping track of bills pay- 
 able. 
 
 CHAPTER y-Tho Store Policjr-What it should be to hold trade, 
 rhe money-back plan. Meeting cut rates. DcUvering goods. Courtesy 
 to customers. 
 
 CHAPTER Vl-Clerk MaaagemeBt-What kind of clerks to hire. 
 Mow to treat them. Making clerks worth more money to themselves 
 and to their employer. 
 
 CHAPTER VII— Uakt— Goods wasted. Time wasted. Finding 
 little leaks. Money-saving fixtures. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII-The Store's Neighbors-Relations with other 
 merchants.^ Co-operation among local merchants for mutual advantage. 
 Merchants associations. 
 
 CHAPTER I X--Working Hoars— Holidays. Overtime when busi- 
 ness demands it. Early closing vs. late closing. 
 
 «7, C.HAPTER X— Ezpeascs— How to figure cost and profit per cents. 
 What it should cost to do business. 
 
 . . ^".f^rP. ^^-'^f C'«>i» Busiae«-The advantages of the cash 
 basis. Which plan pays best. Changing from credit to cash. How to 
 coUeet overdue accou*' 
 
 CHAPTER XII-»/hat to Soll-The staple lines. Advertised 
 goods. Side hnes. Brsnching out into the mail-order business. The 
 exclusive store. Meeting msil-order competition. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII— Premiom Gvinr- Does it pay? Your own pre- 
 nium plan. What kinds of coupons to use. What kinds of premiums to 
 give. 
 
 PRICE Sl.OO POSTPAID 
 
 Sead BsONE DOLLAR. Keep the boolk tea da7s,aBd if it isa't 
 worth the price retara it, aad get year moaej back. 
 
 BYXBEE PUBLISHING CO., 440 So. Dearborn St., Cliiaifo 
 
<■» 
 
 Twill Do Your Advertising 
 
 HERE'S THE BOOK THAT WILL BE YOUR AD. MAN 
 
 This book on advertising will tell you 
 all you want to know about advertising in the 
 store. 
 
 Retail Advertising Complete 
 
 By FRANK FARRINGTON 
 $1.00 POSTPAID 
 
 With this book on your desk you are never 
 at a loss what kind of advertising to do or how 
 to do it. Every kind of advertising is treated fully: 
 
 Chapters on Newspaper advertising. 
 
 Making an advertisement. 
 
 Good speoiman ready-made ads. 
 
 Mail Advertising. 
 
 Window Trimming. 
 
 Advertising Novelties. 
 
 Outdoor Advertising. 
 
 Inside the store advertising. 
 
 Advertising Schemes. 
 
 Special Sales. 
 
 Mail Orders, etc., etc. 
 
 272 PAGES BOUND IN CLOTH 
 
 There is no better book of the kind at any 
 price. You can't afford to get along without it. 
 
 Send 118 your check for a dollar. Keep the book ten 
 days, and if it isn't worth the price return it and get your 
 money back. 
 
 BYXBEEPUBUSHING CO., 440 So. Deuhm St.. CUcuo 
 
 [ 
 
 . 
 
 £08 J^A GES—180 ILLUSTRA TIONS 
 
 WAYS AN2 SCHEMES 
 
 One thontand Ways and Schemea to attract trade, 
 gathered from actual experiences of saccesslul mer- 
 chants in various parts of the world by Irving P. 
 Fox. A book that swells sales and increases profits. 
 
 NO BOOK LIKE IT. 
 
 There has never before been published any- 
 where in the world a book like this. It gives 
 detailed descriptions of one thousand and eight 
 ideas and schemes that have been tried by 
 successful merchants to bring people to their 
 stores and to sell goods. If you purchase this 
 book and try a new idea every day, there will 
 be in it enough separate suggestions to last 
 you nearly three years without repeating a 
 single one. 
 
 FACTS, NOT THEORIES. 
 
 The book is not the work of an advertising 
 writer, giving a lot of theories, but is the re- 
 sult of slow and careful observation by trained 
 business men extending over a period of many 
 years. The various ways to attract trade and 
 to sell goods described were put into practice 
 in stores representing nearly every line of re- 
 tail business and nearly every part of the 
 English speaking world. 
 
 GOOD FOR ANY BUSINESS. 
 
 Almost every one of the thousand and more 
 ideas in the book is of such a nature that, with 
 but slight alteration, it might be adapted to 
 the conditions governing any other particu- 
 lar trade. The book will also be found invalu- 
 able to the retailer for what it suggests as well 
 as for what it says. Many of the schemes 
 mentioned will bring to mind new ideas which 
 could be followed with equal success. 
 
 Price $1 .00 postpaid. Yovr Hoaey Back if not SadsfiedL 
 
 BTXBEE PUBUSHING CO., 
 
 440 Ss. Dearborn Street Chicafa 
 
BOOKS 
 
 By FRANK FARRINGTON 
 
 RETAIL ADVERTISING— COMPLETE 
 
 All kinds of plans for advertising a retail store. 
 
 $1.00 
 
 STORE MANAGEMENT-COMPLETE 
 
 Covering the management of a retail store. 
 
 $1.00 
 
 TALKS BT THE OLD STOREKEEPER 
 
 The best book for merchants. $1.00. 
 
 BACK IN THE HARNESS 
 
 A sequel to * 'Talks by the Old Storekeeper. * ' 
 
 $1.00. 
 
 THE CLERKS* BOOK 
 
 A volume of strong talk to the employees. 
 
 50 cents. 
 
 JOHN MARTIN'S CLERKS 
 
 A tale of the store. 50 cents. 
 
 ADVERTISING FOR DRUGGISTS AND 
 
 STATIONERS 
 
 A comprehensive book for the particular lines 
 
 mentioned. $1.00. 
 
 Any of the above sent on receipt of price. 
 Your money back if not satisfactory. 
 
 BYXBEE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 440 So. DEARBORN STREET 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 r 
 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 
 This book is dua on the date indicated below, or at the 
 expiration of a definite period after the date of borrowing, 
 as provided by the rules of the Library or by special ar- 
 rangement with the Librarian in charge. 
 
 DATE BORROWED 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 DATE BORROWED 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 -.1 
 
 I 
 
 €20(838) M50 
 
 I I 
 
 f:t \ 
 
 I' i 
 
 D254^5 
 
 
 MAY 1 91994 
 
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 ^?lfcfflin!^ffi.f «SITY LIBRARIES 
 
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 0041415280 
 
 2 1939