Then the salesman
sells as much as he can, that he may crowd the other man out. But even
this is poor policy.
I once took on a new town. My predecessor had been getting only a
share of his customer's trade; two others had divided the account with
him. I made up my mind to have all of the account or none. The
merchant went to my sample room and gave me an order for a bill of
hats. He bought at random. When I asked him what sizes he wanted, he
said: "Oh, run 'em regular." "Very well," said I, "but will it not be
well to look through your stock and see just what sizes you need?
Maybe you have quite a number of certain sizes on hand and it will be
needless for you to get more of them. Let's go down to the store and
look through your stock."
We went to his store. The first item on the order he had given me was
one dozen black "Columbias." I found that he had five dozen already on
hand. "Look here," said I, "don't you think I would better scratch
that item off of the bill?" I drew my pencil through the "one dozen
Columbias.
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