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TALKS BY THE OLD
STOREKEEPER







TALKS BY THE OLD
STOREKEEPER
BY
FRANK EARRINGTON
Author of “Real Advertising,”
“The Vagabond Book,”
Etc.
-, *, *, *
1906
Merchants' Helps Publishing Co.
Delhi, N. Y.
Copyright, 1906, by
FRANK FARRINGTON
PRESS OF THE IRVINGTON PRESS
IRWINGTON-ON-HUDSON
NEW YORK, U. S. A.

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INTRODUCTION
As an introduction seems to be the thing to be
put in the front of a book, I'll put in a short one
in order to be orthodox. I don't expect any
one to read it.
While I am not posing as a philanthropist,
I will say that this book is not written for gold
alone. I want to give every other merchant
a chance to benefit by my experiences in store-
keeping.
I have not been at it so very long, but in
sixteen or seventeen years a man can make
enough mistakes to teach him quite a few things
and if you can profit by experiences without
having to go through them, why isn't that a
pretty good thing for you?
If I haven't put the real shop flavor in this
book it won't be because I didn't have the chance
I had to write it in the intervals of waiting on
customers and some of the things the book
says are pretty nearly right hot from the bat.
No man remembers all the lessons he learns,
even those of the hard school of experience.
As my experiences have not been particularly

3
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
unique they may cover much the same ground
that your own do. In that case you should find
here collected the very lessons that you have
forgotten. & -
If any reader of this little book differs from
me on the points I make, I’d be glad to hear his
ideas. I’m looking for a chance to learn more,
because the further into this shop-keeping
business I get, the more there seems to be
to learn.
- Frank Farrington.
(Delhi, N. Y.) *
-
-
--
.
|-|-_-_--！--~~~~---- - （ ）
7%e Old Store/ºeezer Zazàing wit/. Barlow.




falks by the Old Storekeeper
FIRST TALK
(The Old Storekeeper, Tobias Jenkins, was
one of the old school merchants who were the
successful business men in the smaller towns
about thirty years ago. He had conducted a
general store for forty years in Hampton and
had made enough money to keep himself and
his family in his declining years. This done
and being free from a mania for mere money
making, he had sold out his business, that of
dry goods and groceries, to young John Barlow,
a clerk in a smaller store, who had been left
enough money to start him going free from debts.
Barlow hired an entirely new set of clerks,
with one exception, and set out to run things
on a modern basis. Though naturally capable
and a good worker, he lacked experience in man-
aging and made mistakes galore which rather
tickled the Old Storekeeper who used to drop
in frequently for a chat and a chance to rub
it into his successor. The chats developed a
good deal of interesting material which together
with some outside conversations have been
collected in these Talks.)
5
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
If there is any time when business will be
dull in a retail store, especially in a country
town, it is in the middle of the afternoon on a
winter day when the rainy stage of a February
thaw is in progress.
On one such day, when the rain was beating
against the windows, when the snowy streets
were quagmires of slush and the choking gutters
were making ponds of the sidewalks, the Old
Storekeeper opened the door as a particularly
wet gust of rain whipped across the store front,
and came in with the same fresh, brisk air that
he would have shown on a crisp October morn-
ing with the sunshiny street full of people.
Henry Bilow, the clerk who had at the time
of his selling out, been longest in his employ
and the only one of the force that the old gen-
tleman recommended Barlow to keep, could have
told you that Tobias Jenkins was a man who
was always cheerful. He might at times be
serious and no one could be more serious in
the discussion of serious subjects, but he was
never doleful.
As he entered the store, Barlow, who sat back
in the raised and partitioned off space that he'd
made for an office, greeted him almost cheer-
fully, forgetting a glumness which was perhaps
natural in a man trying to start off his business
#
6
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
with a boom and a big white goods sale, and
the weather so bad that not a woman was on
the street in all day.
Even the clerks who were indolently trying
to be just busy enough so that they would
not be set at some real work, braced up and
returned the Old Storekeeper's salutation in
a way that showed that they were glad that he
had come.
Such is the personality of some men that they
are always welcomed at a time when the gloomy
element in nature predominates. Such was
the personality of Tobias Jenkins; sometimes a
little bluff, generally plain-spoken, rarely failing
in judgment, always cheerful.
As he walked back through the store, turning
aside from the grocery department, and finally
taking a seat near Barlow's desk, the store grew
perceptibly brighter in atmosphere though
there was no abatement of the storm out-
side.
“Well, John, there doesn't seem to be any
great rush of business this afternoon. I guess
the boy that went out for grocery orders this
morning did more business than any of the
rest of you have done to-day.”
Barlow suggested that it was hardly to be
expected that white goods or any other goods
:- *
7
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
would sell when there wasn't a soul on the street
to buy them.
“Well, now,” said the old gentleman, “seems
to me you were going to run this store in a bran
new way. I remember some sort of a song and
dance about there not being any need of having
dull times in a store if the storekeeper was on to
his job. Don't you suppose you forgot some-
thing in getting ready for this big Opening of
yours? Did you advertise it hard enough?
Maybe you didn't get your prices down as low
as they ought to be. I hate to see my successor
fall down on his first try, especially after
taking a correspondence school course in how
to be a big business getter.”
All this was said in a bantering tone and was
received with a smile that showed plainly
enough that to Barlow this form of teasing was
no new thing and that it created no ill feeling.
As a matter of fact Barlow had had a big.
opening a few days before. He had closed up
the store for a week and had billed the country
far and wide, using half sheet posters to exploit
his complete stock, his modern methods and the
low prices under the new management. He had
intimated that the store had hitherto been
conducted upontoo conservativelines and that his
change of policy would make a modern store of it.
8
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
All that was in a way a rebuke to the Old
Storekeeper who had never advertised to any
great extent and had never had special sales,
but had been very popular and had made
money. Naturally he lost few opportunities
for joking his successor about anything that
could be construed to look like a failure of his
new notions.
“Did you use to have any ways for making
days like this profitable?” asked Barlow.
“Did I?” Tobias exclaimed. “Rainy days
were my busy days. I'd just sit down at my
desk here where you’ve got this fancy piazza.
built and I’d write all the letters that had to
be written that week. Then I'd make out
checks and discount all the bills that I could—
that's the way to make money—and the next
day when the weather was good and business
picked up, I wouldn't have anything to keep
me from waiting on customers.
“And that reminds me that I never was much
of a hand to stand around in good clothes and
boss things. Gosh! you wouldn't wear to a dog
fight the clothes I used to wear. When a
customer came in I didn’t turn him over to
Some clerk to wait on. No, sir. I waited on
just as many customers myself as I could and
do the managing part too. -
9
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“Say, I was better at waiting on customers
than any clerk I ever had. The best clerk
you get can’t wait on as many customers and
do it as well as the boss. Well, that’s putting
it pretty strong, but you know what I mean;
the boys will loaf even in a rush time. The
boss knows that he can't afford to. He has
an incentive the clerks don’t have.
“You can just make up your mind anyway
that people like to see the boss around. It
doesn’t make any difference how good clerks
you may have, if you are running a store, it will
pay you to let your customers see that you
see them there. Lots of them run stores them-
selves and they want you to know that they
are giving you their patronage.
“Talking about rainy days though; gee whiz! .
how my clerks hated stormy weather. Then
I’d get my money's worth out of them. I didn't
have any private office where I could get out of
sight, and when I’d see them standing around
feeling so bad at having nothing to do, I'd be
bound to get them busy at something.
“Henry, there, can tell you how it was. He
used to hang back a little at times, but when
I Once got him started he certainly was a good
worker. That's the trouble though with about
half the good workers. You have to stir 'em
10
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
up every morning with a sharp stick to get 'em
going.”
Turning to Barlow, Tobias continued:
“They’re like the old sorrel pacer that Bob
Mulford used to bring over from Slab Hill every
fall to the county fair trot. Go? That horse
could go rings around anything else in the county
but he wouldn't start. Bob fooled with him
two years and made himself the laughing stock
of the crowd. Then the third year when he
came back they thought he was crazy but he
wasn’t. He just brought out his horse when
they called the race and set him down, sulky
and all, right under the wire. The rest all
scored up and came down the stretch ready for a
start. Bob pulled out a long forked stick and
gave the sorrel two hard jabs with it just as
the bunch went by him. The sorrel jumped
about a rod and was off. He went by the rest
as if they were standing still. He won the heat
and in spite of protests by the other drivers
he was allowed to score up in his own way for
the other heats and won the race hands down.
“That was all right in its way but that horse
was like lots of clerks. If you get ’em started,
they go like the wind. Next time you have to
start 'em again same way. In the long run I
don't know but old Jog Trot is a better horse.”

11
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
Barlow laughed at the story and said that
he had an idea that the fellow who kept hunching
along was a good man but he could never be in
the same class with the other when the other
did get started and sometimes that other got
over being hard to start.
The Old Storekeeper stuck to his point though
and it ended by Barlow asking him into the
drug store next door to have a cigar and leave
it to the druggist. As far as I know, the de-
cision must have been reserved for I never heard
either Barlow or the old gentleman refer to the
matter again.
12
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
i•
SECON D TALK
. The February thaw lasted but a short time
and the first day after it caught cold the Old
Storekeeper had occasion to go up to Barlow's
and late in the afternoon he started out. As
he went down the street he overtook Judge
Martin.
“Good afternoon, Judge,” said Tobias. “You
must have been out of town, haven't you?”
“Yes,” said the Judge, a pompous old fellow
who felt every bit as important as he was.
“I have just returned from presiding over the
February term at Hooperstown.” -
“Anything important this term?” the old
Storekeeper asked casually.
“No, nothing of an epoch making nature,
nothing. There was a case though that might
have proved of interest to you. I think I have
understood that you incline to the belief that
in the case of embezzlers, the employer is often
culpable. Is not that true?”
“Well, Judge,” replied Tobias, “I have
voiced that sentiment pretty freely in some of
13
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
my talks among the business men in town.
Why do you ask?” *
“I ask for the reason that there was brought
before me for trial a young man who had been
detected putting his employer's money to private
uses. The youth was obviously guilty and
though he pleaded otherwise, he was so found
by the jury who recommended mercy in sen-
tencing the culprit.”
“Judge, I'm glad to hear that. “Employers'
responsibility' has got to be a sort of fad with
me. Why, do you know, if I was going to make
an eleventh commandment, I believe I'd make
it read about like this, ‘Thou shalt not tempt
thine employee!’”
“Good; excellent!” said the Judge.
- “I tell you, Judge, a lot of good sermons
could be preached on that text and I’m not
sure but that they will be some of these days
when the ambition to expose something or
somebody gets down to those in the lower walks
of commercial life.
“There isn't any question in my mind that
the man who leaves his money drawer open to
his clerks and turns his back and practically
says, “I’m not looking and I won't miss it,' or
the mistress who goes out and leaves her jewels
lying where the maid could safely steal them,
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14
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a// about ºf.”




Talks by the Old Storekeeper
are to a large extent to blame for the downfall
of the clerk or the maid when the temptation
becomes too great to be resisted.”
“Assuredly, assuredly,” nodded the Judge.
“The law will not touch them, but moral senti-
ment, Mr. Jenkins, moral sentiment is going to
operate along that line in the future.”
“I hope so, Judge. I know there's a theory
that character is strengthened in just such way,
by temptation, and there's a theory too that
no man is strong who has not been tried mightily
in the fire of temptation; but One did teach us
to say ‘Lead us not into temptation,' and why
isn’t it a thousand times better never to have
been tempted than to have been tempted and
sometime have fallen? If character cannot be
developed except at the expense of honesty,
then I say develop honesty and character will
take care of itself.”
“Mr. Jenkins, I congratulate you upon the
soundness of your logic,” said Judge Martin
as he turned in at his office door. “Come up
sometime and we will talk the matter over
further. You interest me very much. Good
afternoon.” •
“Good day, Judge,” responded Tobias as
he went on down the street, a good deal pleased
at the Judge's appreciation of his ideas.
15
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
He reached Barlow's just as the latter had
returned from an early supper and was settling
down in his office chair to enjoy a cigar in the
quiet hour that usually comes at that time of
day. -
“Been pretty busy to-day?” the Old Store-
keeper asked after responding to the customary
greetings.
“Yes,” said Barlow, “we have been busy.
We are every day for that matter unless the
weather is too bad. Our opening turned out to
be a great success. What do you suppose our
sales were the first day we were open?”
“Not being any mind reader I can't tell,”
answered Tobias. I never thought the farming
population would be very strong on openings
and you would have to depend on them a good
deal here. I always found that what the farmers
liked best was to have you come out to the wagon
and hand up a big cigar and ask what they
thought of that new mare their neighbor's
been getting. How much did you take in the
first day?”
“The sales were four hundred dollars,” said
Barlow.
“Four hundred dollars!” exclaimed the old
gentleman. Why, that's more than I ever took
in in two days. I remember the biggest day
16
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
£
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.º:*-
I ever had, and I remember it not on that ac-
count so much as on account of the fact that
the chap who was my head clerk at that time
overreached himself that day.
“I knew that it had been a big day, I thought
probably the biggest we'd ever had but the cash
that night didn't come up to my expectations
by a good deal. I’d been Smelling a mouse
for quite a while, and when I counted up that
night I made up my mind I’d have a little talk
with that head clerk. I called him into the
back room the first thing in the morning and
told him that I had suspicions that one of the
clerks was taking more money than I had paid
him.”
“He was a mighty Square acting and said it
was right that I should speak to him first as
he was head clerk and he wanted to assure me
that he thanked me for giving him a chance
to clear himself of any suspicions that might
have entered my mind against him.”
“He talked to me that way for half an hour
and finally it came over me that instead of
my finding out anything about him or what I
wanted to know, I was just listening to a little
speech that bid fair to last forever. The fellow
seemed perfectly honest. He met me more
than half way, so much more in fact that he
17
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
overreached and made me suspicious. I didn't
let on though. I just said "It's all right, John,
I wanted to see what you had to say and see
if you had any ideas to offer. I see that I
need not worry as far as you are concerned.
I hadn't anyway, but I wanted to be on the
safe side. Don't speak of this to the other boys
and I'll look a little farther.’
“All the same, I had made up my mind not
to look up anyone else till I had looked Mr.
John up pretty thoroughly.
“I took to looking up the young man's
amusements outside of hours. And, by the
way, there's no use talking, an employer does
have a right to know what his clerks do after
the store closes. He has the right for several
TeaSOIlS. -
“If your clerk boozes or gambles, he is going
to tap your till if he gets a chance. He's got
to borrow of somebody and you are right handy.
I don't believe you ever knew a man who did
either of those things, that didn't get in debt
doing them. Well, you don’t want a clerk to
be taking your money, do you?
“Then there's another side to it too. If
your clerk is that sort of a fellow, he will get
the reputation for it sooner or later and people
will avoid him. He will be drawing the wrong
18
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
--i.!',
if
kind of people to your store and keeping the
right kind away. You will be coming in after
eaving him there, to find him visiting with a
lot of loafers that you wouldn't pay a dollar
a week to work for you.
“You’d think that the fact that a clerk was
a damage to your store and a leak to your money
drawer ought to make an excuse for your
noticing what he did after hours, wouldn't you?
Well, there's another reason besides that.
Every employer is in a way responsible for what
his clerks make of themselves. I mean by that
that he is responsible if he doesn’t do all he
can to make men of them—yes, sir, and I be-
lieve he is responsible if he doesn’t interfere
to keep them from going wrong Outside of
the store as well as inside of it.”
“Oh, now, Mr Jenkins,” put in Barlow, “you
make it too strong. I think a clerk is his own
man and has to make or break himself. He can't
lay his success or failure to his employer y 7
As Barlow said this, the other, who was watch-
ing the street, exclaimed:
“There goes Mary Ann past the door now!
I've got to go home to supper with her. I'll
see you again on this subject. Good bye!”
and the Old Storekeeper rushed out after his
stylish daughter with the plain name.
19
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
THIRD TALK
At the same hour the next night the Old
Storekeeper came in and it was plain from his
look that he had come just then with the idea
of finding conditions similarly favorable to
a continuance of the discussion that he had
left so abruptly.
With a cordial greeting, Barlow motioned
him to a chair and offered him a cigar and
began to talk of the weather, purposely steering
away from the subject that he knew was upper-
most in Tobias’ mind. .
The old gentleman however was not to be
side-tracked from his purpose, however, and
after a few casual monosyllabic replies, opened
up with:
“Now, my boy, I don't want you to think for
a minute that I was running away from your
argument last night. I had to go or I would
have stayed to finish it then. I guess I did most
of the talking while I was here and I didn't
give you much of a chance to air your ideas
anyway. Do you mean to say that you think
20
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
;
-
an employer ought to let his clerks go their
own way and he go his with no interest in them
except when they are on duty P’’
“Yes, I do, Mr. Jenkins. I am not disposed
to be quite so cold-blooded as that perhaps,
but I don’t believe that any proprietor has any
business poking around to see what his clerks
do after they get away from the store. A clerk
has to have some fun and most bosses are sort
of old fogies—I don’t mean you or myself by
that—and wouldn't approve of their clerks
doing anything but go to prayer-meeting after
leaving the store.”
“You’re 'way off, my boy. You're 'way off.
I suppose it's because it isn’t so very long since
you were a clerk yourself and probably got
called down pretty hard until you think you
are going to be a philanthropist and show your
clerks that you know how they ought to be
treated.”
“Well,” said Barlow, “that is to a certain
extent the idea. I know the man I worked
for used to be always butting in when I came
down in the morning, and I thought it was none
of his business as long as I did what he hired
me to do.”
“Say,” interrupted the Old Storekeeper,
“I don't know what the old man used to say to
21
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
you. He may have had an offensive way of
trying to find out how you spent your time and
you ought to have overlooked that, but he
certainly had the right to know something
about what sort of a fellow he was trusting the
handling of his money to. If you hadn't had
something to conceal, you wouldn't have kicked
so hard On his asking about it. What were you
doing those nights, playing a little poker?”
“No, Mr. Jenkins, I was as straight a fellow
as I could be. That's on the level, but it just
made me mad to have the old cuss butt in in
that way.”
“There now, don’t get so riled up over the
mere recollection of it. You forget that you
are the boss yourself now. Don't you ever
feel that you'd like to know what your clerks
are doing after hours? Aren't you interested
in making men of them?”
“Yes, I want them to be men, but if they
won’t be, I can’t make them, can I? How
can I be responsible for the morals of every-
body that works for me? Why, I might have
a hundred clerks. Would you have a man
spend all his time following up his employes?
There wouldn't be time for anything else.”
“No, I don't mean it as bad as that. If you
have a hundred clerks you will have them divided
22
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
into departments and I would expect the head
of every department to exercise as much super-
vision as possible over the employes under him.
But in the case of any smaller store, the pro-
prietor himself can watch his clerks and not use
up much time doing it. I’ll tell you right now,”
and the old man lowered his voice, “I wouldn't
have the set of clerks you have out there or
any other set very long without finding out what
their reputation was among the fellows they
run with. I don't know anything against any
of them. Henry Bilow worked for me a
long time and he is strictly all right, but you'd
better change your ideas and get a line on the
antics of the rest of the bunch. It's for your own
advantage and what is more important, it's
for their advantage too. Any young fellow
like that needs someone to watch him and call
him down when he gets to feeling his oats too
much.”
Barlow only smiled without showing any
irritation over what he may have thought was
interference. That he did not agree was evi-
dent. He half changed the subject though by
asking Tobias what was the end of the affair
with his clerk who had claimed to be so honest.
“Well,” said the Old Storekeeper, “when I
began to look up the fellow's amusements, I


23
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
found that he belonged to what seemed to be
the most innocent kind of a club of young fel-
lows who had a room up in the corner of one
of the business blocks where they spent their
evenings playing musical instruments and cards.
There didn't seem any harm in that, particu-
larly when, as I found out, they had a rule
posted on the wall forbidding gambling of any
sort. I wasn't satisfied though. There was
no other clue to follow and I determined to
know more about this one. It doesn’t matter
how I found out about it, but I did find out
that in that little back, upstairs corner room
about ten clerks in various stores around were
in the habit of playing a game of poker that
was about what men with three times their
salaries could afford to play if they were care-
ful. -
“I found this out so that while I was morally
certain of it, yet I had nothing that would be
real proof if questioned. That was all I wanted
though. My real proof that the clerk was taking
my money came when after having my talk
with him, the sales for a week or so had jumped
right up to where they belonged. This not
only satisfied me that he was the thief
and that I had scared him, but it satisfied me
too that the rest of the clerks were honest. I
24
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
didn't accuse John of anything, for I knew
it would be no use. I just bounced him without
a word of explanation and he went without
asking a question, and always after that I
made my clerks' pleasures my business—to a
certain extent.”
As the old gentleman said this, he leaned back
and puffed at his cigar, evidently waiting for
Barlow's opinion.
Barlow did not agree with him. That much
was perfectly apparent but all he said was:
“Well, you may be right. You have at least
had more years of experience than I have had,
but I wouldn't act as a spy on One of my
clerks for all the money he could take without
my catching him.”
“You are young yet and can learn a lot of
things,” said Tobias. “I don't mean that I
think all clerks are dishonest, but if a fellow
gets into debt and needs money pretty badly
as most young men do at times, it's pretty easy
for him to borrow it where it's easy to get, and
borrowers are hard enough to collect from
when you know they have been borrowing, let
alone when you don't know it. I say that it's
every employer's business to keep his clerks
from putting themselves where they are tempted
to borrow dishonestly, and when the employer
25
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
doesn't do all he can to that end, he is in a
way responsible for his clerk's dishonesty—
though, mind you, I don't mean to say that
that lessens the clerk's responsibility for the
crime one whit.”
“That makes a good theory,” said Barlow,
“but it isn't very practical. I’m going to be-
lieve my men are honest till they are proved
otherwise. That's the way I’d want to be
treated.”
“Hope you find your way a good One. I
know mine is. I’ve tried it,” said the Old
Storekeeper, as he picked up his stick and
sauntered along out. “We'll compare ex-
periences again later. Good night.”
26
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
FOURTH TALK
It was a bright, sunshiny afternoon in March
when the Old Storekeeper came in again and
the store was well filled with customers who
were keeping the clerks busy.
Without more than a nod to the boys, Tobias
sauntered along till he came to the ribbon case
which stood in the middle of the broad aisle
between the counters and stopped there to
look around. Barlow was not far away selling
a bill of canned goods to a hotel keeper and as
he looked up from the paper on which he had
been figuring their cost, he saw the old gentle-
man writing his name in the dust on top of the
ribbon case.
When the fat hotel man had paid his bill
and walked out, the Old Storekeeper strolled
back to the grocery counter and sat down on
one of the stools with the remark:
“Well, I guess the good old times are all out
of date now. Used to be that we spent a lot of
time figuring how to buy goods as cheap as we
could. Used to be I'd get out on the floor here
every morning myself and see that the boys
27
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
cleaned things up the way they ought to be
cleaned. If they left dust on a case anywhere,
they had to come back and take it off. There
are a lot more things that we used to do that
don’t seem to be in style any more.”
“Now, Mr. Jenkins,” broke in Barlow, “I
saw you writing your name up there on top of
that case and I see the point all right. I do
generally go around and see that the store
is properly cleaned, but you see this morning
I got to writing advertisements, and—”
“Yes, yes, I know. Advertising seems to be
kind o' taking the place of dustin' and every-
thing else. They say it will make two blades
of grass grow where only one grew before,
but I’ve just got an idea that some of the old
fashioned notions weren’t so bad after all.”
“Oh, of course,” said Barlow, “a fellow has
to do something beside advertise or he can't
make a success of his business. Advertising
is only to get trade. You’ve got to hold it some
other way. Advertising won't do that part.”
“So you'll admit that advertising has its
limitations, will you? I’m sort of surprised at
that. I reckoned you made a god of adver-
tising, you correspondence school fellows. From
the ads I see in the magazines I judged that
advertising could make the old young and the
28
“If you don't haze the goods you can't sell 'em."
， ！


Talks by the Old Storekeeper
poor rich, the sick well and the weak strong.
I had even thought of taking a course for my
rheumatism.
“But speakin' of the way to hold trade after
you once get it, it always struck me that there
was about as much in the way you treat a
customer as there is in the goods you give him.
If a man isn't generous people darned soon
think he's stingy. You've got to take pains
to show 'em that you aren't close or you get
the name of being tighter’n the bark on a tree.
“I always advocated the money-back-if-you-
want-it scheme pretty strong myself. I’ve
heard lots of merchants say that they didn't
believe it was good policy, that you'd get robbed
right and left and that you’d have goods dumped
back on your hands that you'd have to throw
away. I’ve heard 'em ring in all those old
arguments about it, but I did business on that
plan all the while I ran a store, and I don’t be-
lieve I got touched up half a dozen times.
“I do recollect one time when a fellow moved
into town from Bloomville and kind o' come it
on me. He was a smooth chap if there ever
was one, and the first day after he struck the
town, he came in to buy a lot of groceries.
“He said he was a new man in town and
Wanted to trade where he could do the best and
29
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
get the best goods. He claimed he'd had a lot
of poor groceries put on him where he'd been
living and he wanted to buy where he wouldn't
get stuck again. I said that we sold our goods
on the money-back-if-you-want-it plan.
“‘The what plan?’ said he?”
“The money-back-if-you-want-it plan, said
I. That means that if you buy goods from us
that don’t give you satisfaction, we'll give you
your money back.
“‘Yes,’ said he, kind o' doubtfully, ‘I’ve
heard of people doing business that way, but
I never knew of anybody getting their money
back. I'd like to buy goods of you. I want
fifty dollars worth and I’ve got the money,
but I got stuck so bad up there in Bloomville
that I hate to take any chances.’
“You don’t take any chances here, said I.
I'll give you a receipted bill for your goods and
write on it right over my signature ‘Your money
back if you want it.’ -
“‘I’ll take 'em,” said he, and I was such a fool
that I did just as I said I would. I wrote under
the bill ‘Your money back if you want it,
Tobias Jenkins.” .
“The fellow took the goods and went away,
and I didn’t think any more about the matter
until about a year later when he drifted in one
30
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
day, looking pretty seedy and asked to see me.
One of the boys brought him back to the desk
and he shoved that old bill at me and said:
“‘I’ll take the money.’
“I didn't see the point. What money do you
want? I asked him.
“‘Why, the money on that bill, fifty dollars.
Don't you see it says there that you'll give me
my money back?'
“Yes, I said, but weren’t the goods satis-
factory?
“‘No,' he said, ‘they were on the bum and
I'll take the money.’
“Well, I said, where are the goods? Bring
them back and I’ll give you the money. I
thought that was a happy idea, for, of course,
he didn’t have the goods then.
“‘Where are the goods? Does it say any-
thing there about bringing the goods back?'
he asked.
“I had to admit that it did not say a word.
“‘Well,” he went on, “then just pay me the
fifty and I’ll be going along.’
“Not much, said I. You can't swindle me
in that fashion.
“‘All right, I’ll see a lawyer about it,” he
remarked as he went out.
“I didn't have so very long to wait, for while
... . ~~~~.
31
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
I was wondering what would happen, in came
the pettifogging lawyer who always took all
the cheap cases of the town. I saw then that
he had sent the fellow in first just to get my
refusal, and that it was all cut and dried.
“The expected happened, and though I re-
fused to pay, I was sued in justice's court and
had to settle up.”
“Didn't that cure you of the money-back
notion?” asked Barlow.
“Not by a jugful!” said the old gentleman.
“I was stuck that time easy enough, but doing
business on that plan had made enough fifty
dollars for me so that I had the money to pay,
and though I knew I was being cheated and
couldn't help it, I stuck to the scheme and it
proved a big winner. The case I told you was
a big ad for me, and at the same time made the
other merchants fight shy of the scheme. I
had the money-back business all to myself
as a plan for holding trade. I’ll tell you there
isn’t anything like it. It impresses your
generous policy on every man you sell goods to.”
“Oh, it's an old story, this advertising
‘Your money back if you want it.' Nobody
believes it.”
“Hold on, Barlow. I didn't say anything
about advertising it. You are the fellow with
32
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
advertising on the brain. Of course you couldn't
use that now for a catch phrase. It’s worn
out as you say, but see that with every sale
your clerks make they give the assurance that
the goods are fully guaranteed, and that if
they are not satisfactory, you will refund the
price paid. Of course there are some goods
that you can't guarantee, and they ought never
to be sold except with that fact understood
by the buyer.
“That of course is only one way of showing
that your policy is a generous one, but it's
about the best way and it will pay every time.”
“Well,” said Barlow, “I don't know but you
are right. I’ve thought a good deal about it
but rather distrusted it. Still you have had
a lot of experience and ought to know. Maybe
I'll try it. I’ll be up to the house to-night and
perhaps we can talk about it a little more.”
At this Barlow had to leave to wait on a
customer, and the old gentleman moved along
out with the half audible remark to himself,
“Yes, I expect he'll have a good deal of time
to talk to me when he comes up to the house to
see Mary Ann. I can just see her face and his
too when I walk into the parlor and say that
I've come in to talk about that money-back-if-
you-want-it scheme.”

33
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
FIFTH TALK
One Thursday evening a week later the Old
Storekeeper dropped in at closing up time,
just as the boys were pulling down the shades.
He made a small purchase, and was about to go
out again, when Barlow called to him to come
back and sit down.
“I’m not going home yet. Wait a while and
have a smoke.”
“Don’t care if I do,” said the old gentleman.
“I’m always willing to visit. My wife says I’m
the champion visitor of the county. I tell her
that the president of a ladies' sewing society
hasn't got any call to be talking about champion
visitors. How’s business?”
“Business is fine,” answered Barlow. “I’m
going to the city to buy spring goods in a few
days. Don’t you want to go along?”
“Not on your life,” said Tobias. “You
don't get me into any such strenuous place as
that in many a long month. I've retired from
Work.”
“Well, just keep your eye on things while
34
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
I'm gone. The boys are all right, and I wouldn't
have them watched, but a fellow feels safer to
know that someone is kind of looking after his
interests. I'll tell them that if they get puzzled
about anything you’ll help 'em Out.”
“All right, as long as you don't lay out any
work for me I won't kick. You don’t want me
to write some advertisements for you, do you?”
“No, I don’t believe there'll be any of that
to be done while I'll be away, although I’ve
just contracted for doubling the size of my
space in all the local papers. I wish Hampton
had a daily. These weekly papers are pretty
slow getting 'round. I want to advertise every
day,” complained Barlow.
“It strikes me that you pay a lot of your
profit out for advertising. Now, for instance,
if it's a fair question, how much did it cost you
to advertise that opening?”
“I wouldn't make it public as I know of,
but I don't mind telling you that the adver-
tising stood me in two hundred dollars.”
“Two hundred dollars! Why, boy, that's
more than you made on all the goods you sold
during the opening if you count in the cost of
selling. How do you expect to make any money
that way?” -
“Oh, well, a fellow doesn't expect to make
35
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
any money out of his opening. It's more to
get the people in the way of coming here.”
“Um—m—m, I see. Your advertising cost
you two hundred dollars and so as to have
something good to advertise, you marked a
lot of goods at cost. Then you sold several
hundred dollars’ worth of them and didn’t lose
a cent on 'em. Then you probably charged the
advertising up to general expense, so you calcu-
late you broke even and got a good start. Is
that it?”
“Well,” said Barlow, “in the main that is the
idea.”
“I may be sort o' stupid, but I confess I
don't just understand this advertising game
very well yet. Now, you say you got a whole
lot of advertising out of this big opening sale.
You must figure that advertising will increase
your total profits, and yet your advertising
money is taken out of those profits. Then,
too, you seem to think that it will increase
your profits to sell a whole lot of goods at just
what they cost you. I don’t see into that.
“You sell those goods at cost to get people
to tell their friends about it so that you can sell
still more at cost. And folks buy all they
want of these goods at cost, and when you get
a chance to buy a little cheaper or to boost the
36
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
price a little so that you could make a profit,
everybody has all they want. That gives you
a chance to carry along a good big stock without
selling any of it until people begin to want some
more. Then they come and find the price is
higher, and they think you are robbing them
and they go over to Bing's and get what they
want and he makes the money. Is that the
idea P’’
“That,” said Barlow, “is the way a good many
old fogies look at it.”
“Oh, I don't object any to being called an old
fogy,” said the Old Storekeeper without a
trace of the irritation that the other had ex-
hibited. “In fact I rather like it now that I
am out of the game. I like to sit back and
feel like a two-thirty horse watching a lot of
three-minute nags trying to go in 'ten. I
never did what they are trying to do, but I
did better than they ever will do. My idea
of this advertising business, from what I have
seen of your schemes, my boy, is that it is a
darned good thing—for your customers.”
Barlow plainly showed that he was disgusted.
“You haven’t seen anything but the be-
ginning of my plans yet,” said he. “Just wait
till things get going. It's the year as a whole
that you want to consider, not one or two or
37
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
a dozen days. Advertising pays, and the more
you advertise, the more it pays—if you use good
sense. That has been demonstrated time and
again. I am just following a set of rules that
are as sure as the laws of the seasons.”
“Maybe, maybe,” assented Tobias, dubiously,
“but don't forget that there is a law that says:
that you can’t make any money selling things
for cost. I tried that myself just once and I
know that it’s a law that works overtime.
“I bought a lot of those red hot plaid scarfs
when they used to wear that sort of thing and
paid a dollar a piece for them. Got 'em cheap,
too. I had an attack of an idea that was about
twenty-five years ahead of the times then.
I said to myself, ‘I’ll have some fun with Jones
down the street.” He and I were the two
stores in the dry goods business those days—
we sold every blamed thing you could think of
in any other line too. I decided to sell those
scarfs for seventy-five cents each, and charge
the loss to expense account.
“I knew that Jones couldn’t duplicate 'em
for less than one-twenty-five. I decided that I
would show folks that I could undersell Jones
from 'way back. I piled the scarfs up by the
door and hung out a card that said, “Fine
Scarfs, regular $2.oo kind, 75c.’ They were
38
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
.
--
&
scarfs that were selling for two dollars all
right, and I knew that everyone would notice
the bargain.
“Then I sat down to wait. Two or three
men saw the scarfs and bought them. I had
a lot of them and the pile hadn't gone down
much by night, but in the evening a lot of fel-
lows, regular customers and friends of Jones
came in and got scarfs. I was mighty pleased
to be getting their trade, because you know,
if you can get a man coming to your store for
special things, you’ll soon have him coming for
the regulars.
“The next morning as I came down to the
store past Jones', I saw a pile, not very large,
but a pile just the same of scarfs identical to
mine out in front of his door and the price on
them was 65c.!
“That worried me a little and I put my price
down to 6oc. I had a great run on the goods
that afternoon—all from Jones’ customers,
too. I went home at night feeling better,
and came down the next morning to see Jones'
pile was marked 5.5c., and bigger than the day
before. Then I tumbled. Jones was buying
my scarfs and underselling me at a loss of only
five cents a scarf. I was losing 4oc.
“I pulled in my sign and called the sale off.

39
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
That was my only experience in selling goods
below cost to get a reputation. Always after
that I tried to make a profit on everything that
went out! I don’t know as Bings will be over
buying your goods to re-sell, but I’ll bet a cent
you won’t make any money on that kind of
business.”
“Wait and see,” was all the answer that
Barlow vouchsafed, as he turned out the lights
and the two men went out.
40
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
..ºr
SIXTH TALK
The Old Storekeeper was on very friendly
terms with all the clerks in Barlow's, and during
the proprietor's absence on his spring buying
trip, he often dropped in to give them the
chance to ask for advice if they wanted it about
anything. He was far from caring to watch
them with a view to telling Barlow of anything
that happened, and they knew that he was not
the sort to spy upon them, so they took his
frequent bits of bantering advice in the spirit
intended and often profited by them.
As he came in one morning, he found one of
the boys seated on one end of the counter next
the door, in his shirt sleeves.
“Well, well, George,” he exclaimed, “had to
sell your coat, or been playing Sir Walter
Raleight Now, suppose a customer should
come in and see that Barlow can’t afford coats
for his clerks? Why, it would ruin his repu-
tation. People would think his business was
going to the dogs.” -
While Tobias was thus rubbing it into George,
41
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
the rest of the boys laughed unrestrainedly,
there being no customers in the store at the
time.
“Now that's all very well for the rest of you
to laugh,” said the old gentleman, “but I'll
tell you right now that this particular coat
will fit more than one of you. I've seen two
or three of you waiting on customers, ladies at
that, with no coat on and it made me pretty
tired.
“Any lady who comes into a store is entitled
to be treated as a lady and I don't know much
about it, but at our house they won’t let me
eat dinner in my shirt sleeves even when we
don’t have any company. I judge from that
that a gentleman isn't expected to be roaming
around in public half dressed, whether the weath-
er is hot or cold.
“Now suppose a lady should start to come
in here; I don’t see any signs of it now, but
suppose a case. There would stand a man in
his shirt sleeves, just inside the door. I don’t
know what the lady'd do unless she was my
wife, then she'd probably say ‘Excuse me. I
thought this was a store,’ and go out again.
“You kind of expect that in a barber shop
the men will stand around in their shirt sleeves,
but it looks wrong in a store. I ran a general
42
º
“Some sort of gamzó/ing did the trick.”







Talks by the Old Storekeeper
store here for years, and in towns like this you
can't expect too much style, at least we didn't
until Barlow started in—now we expect most
anything—but I never let my clerks wait on
customers in their shirt sleeves, and I guess I
was right about it too.”
The clerks all assented.
“Perhaps you think I'm pretty inclined to
butt in where I haven't any business,” Tobias
went on, “but when a fellow has run a store
for thirty or forty years, even if he has sold
himself out of all right and title in it, if he con-
tinues to hang around, it's hard work for him
to keep his mouth shut.”
One of the boys suggested that they always
liked to hear him “butt in,” and if he did jump
on them, it did them a lot of good.
The Old Storekeeper smiled, and as no one
came in, he went on:
“I’m glad to hear that and I hope the
good will last. If I had the bossing of
you chaps I’d see that you didn't have
any half days like this with your time hang-
ing heavy on your hands. Now I suppose
that from behind that counter you can't
See a half inch of dust on those top shelves,
can you?”
The shelves were Henry Bilow's to care for
43
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
and the laugh was on him, but the tables were
soon turned, for the Old Storekeeper went on:
“Say, Will, you must think that the customers
are all going to come around behind the counter
to look into that show case. The goods are
all turned with their backs to the front. The
trouble with you fellows is that you never get
out and look in at the front of these cases to
see how they look to the public.”
The boys all began to straighten things around
and Tobias continued:
“You want to keep changing the goods in the
show cases as often as you get a chance. That
helps to make folks think you are all the time
getting new goods. A show case mighty soon
gets mussed up and, say, by the way, what's
the matter in that case? I'll just take what you
have of that black silk at 38c. a yard. Why,
that's yard wide goods and worth a dollar-
twenty-five if it's worth a cent.”
The man behind the silk counter looked
sheepish, and began to inspect his stock, to find
that the 38c. a yard price card from some ribbon
had got moved to the black silk. -
“Now that's a nice thing,” said Jenkins,
sarcastically. How many women do you sup-
pose have been in here and seen that and gone
home to make calculations on how much of
44
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
that silk they will need for a dress, and have
told their friends that they could get good, yard
wide, black silk at Barlow's for 38c. a yard?
“Then when they have the dress all planned
and the extra things bought that they could
afford to get because they were to buy the silk
so low, they come after the silk and find that
the price was a mistake! Oh, what a joke it
will be for them! How they will laugh and how
pleased they will be to find that they have spent
a good deal of their money and will have to
wait a while before they can have their dress
after all! They will feel like sending all their
friends here to trade because it is such a
cheap place.”
The clerk at that counter began to look
scared and the Old Storekeeper felt a little
sorry for him and apparently relented.
“Now, I don't really expect that any such
thing as that will happen because that card
probably has been that way but a short time,
but what was to hinder it from creating the
sensation I described 2 If I was a clerk behind
as good a show case as that one, I would be as
pleased with it as a woman with a new baby,
and I’d spend more time in taking care of it.
“I would have a price on every bit of goods in
it, and I’d have the price fixed so that it would
45
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
come out of the case with the goods and go
back in with them and not get on something
else.
“There's nothing like price cards to sell the
goods, but I don't believe I’d want to sell goods
for as Small prices as that 38c. would indicate.
That beats my scarf experience I was telling
the boss about the other day.”
The boys begged for the story of the scarfs,
and with the March rain beating against the
windows the old gentleman repeated it for their
benefit.
While he was telling the story, one or two
customers came in. A farmer among them
bought quite a bill of groceries, and though it
took Bill, the clerk who waited on him, about
twice as long as it should to put them up, on
account of his inability to work rapidly and at
the same time to listen to Tobias' story, he
finally got them fixed.
As the man went out, Bill joined the group
and heard the rest of the tale. After this the
Old Storekeeper visited with one or another of
them until it stopped raining and he was ready
to go home. As he started for the door, he
said to Bill: g
“Why is it that you charge me for groceries
and don’t that farmer?”
46
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“What do you mean?” Bill asked.
“Why, you don’t charge him anything at all,
and I notice that I have to pay for a good many
things I get.”
Bill began to get red in the face and stammer,
and at last the old gentleman stopped him.
“You needn't say a word. I know how it
is to forget to charge sales. I don’t excuse any
man for it, but all the same, the best clerk that
ever jumped a counter will do it and do it pretty
often. That farmer there I happen to know
settles up every four months. Do you sup-
pose he would ever have noticed that you didn't
charge those things. Of course it often happens
that someone will come in and pay for goods
that the clerk forgot to charge. The people
who settle every so often don’t do that though.
“Why, when a man's busy and customers
waiting for him, it's the most natural thing
in the world for him to forget to charge a
sale. The more anxious he is to hustle and
wait on customers, the more apt he is to forget.
You might almost say that the better a clerk
is, the more money he'll lose his employer, in
that way.
“I just positively know of people who had
brains enough when I was running this store
to take advantage of that very fact. People

47
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
who wanted to buy economically would pay
me a trifle more for goods if necessary and never
pay cash because they knew that they would
make more on the things that wouldn't get
charged than they'd lose by paying the long
price—and as a matter of fact, nowadays, you
can't charge a customer who gets hung up any
more than the cash man, unless you sell on the
instalment plan. .
“I don’t want any of you fellows to think
I'm excusing your forgetting, not for a min-
ute. It's just as much a part of your busi-
ness to finish a sale up by putting something
in the money drawer or on the book as it is to
wrap up the parcel.
“Well, I can’t be with you always. I’ll send
my hired man down to sweep down those cob-
webs up there before the boss gets home.”
With this parting shot the Old Storekeeper
went out, leaving them to think over his sug-
gestions,
48
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
SEVENTH TALK
The Old Storekeeper did not visit the store
immediately after Barlow's return from the
city, and as he sat playing a game of cinch with
his daughter one evening, there came a sharp
ring at the door bell, and as pretty Mary Ann
fidgeted around in her chair, the maid announc-
ed, “Mr. Barlow,” who followed her into the
library where the father and daughter sat.
“Good evening, Miss Jenkins; good evening,
Mr. Jenkins,” said Barlow, as he advanced to
shake hands with the two.
“Why,” said the old gentleman, “you back?
I supposed you were still sauntering up and
down the Tenderloin. Come to think, though,
I did sort o' notice this end of town tip up out
of water when the train pulled into the other
end last night. I guess that was when you
stepped off the cars. Mary, why don't you give
Mr. Wanamaker the glad hand?”
“Oh, papa, don't be so foolish. You are all
the time joking Mr. Barlow. Does he talk to
you that way when he comes into the store,
Mr. Barlow P”
49
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“No, he's very careful of my feelings down
there, Miss Jenkins. We have some good talks
and I learn a lot. I set a great value on your
father's advice. I only hope that after I’ve
had as many years of experience as he has, I'll
know as much.”
“But papa says that sometimes you don't
agree with him at all. I guess you have some
ideas of your own.” -
“Yes, he certainly has and he isn't a bit afraid
to express them,” said the father, as he motioned
the younger people to seats. “He has one pet
notion that we’ve had some arguments about,
that every man is honest.”
“Why, papa,” broke in Mary, “you surely
don’t believe in calling every man dishonest
until he proves that he isn’t, do you? I’ve
heard Joe Donnelly say, and he's a lawyer,
that every man is innocent till he's proved
guilty.”
“Thank you, Miss Jenkins,” said Barlow,
“I see that you are on my side.”
“Oh, I’m not so sure about that,” returned
the young lady with a toss of the head. “I’m
pretty apt to be on papa's side, but I want his
side to be right. Isn't that so, daddy?”
“Well, Mary, you see it's like this; I tell
John that he can't afford to hire clerks to come
50
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
|
in and handle his money and pay no attention
to what kind of fellows they are outside of the
store. There isn't a thing to prevent those
young men from stealing him blind if they want
to, except their sense of honesty, and any chap
who has the chance thrown in his face forty
times a day to help himself to somebody else's
money without getting found out, is pretty
apt to see the day when he'll need that money
and take it—expecting to pay it back, of course,
but all the same, no one is very anxious to lend
money on just that security.”
“Oh, well, Mr. Barlow's clerks aren’t that kind
of men. Everybody knows that and there's
no use talking about it. I want to know what
kind of things you got in the city,” and Mary
turned to Barlow with the way that women
assume when they have settled a discussion
in their own mind.
“You see,” she went on, “papa says that we
have to buy everything here in Hampton be-
cause he doesn't believe in buying away from
home, and it's pretty hard on mama and me
because there isn't any really good dry goods
store in the town—that is, I meant—well,
there isn’t and that's all about it, or at least
there wasn’t until you took this one from papa.
They do say now that you have better things
51
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
there, but all the girls send to the city for their
clothes, and it makes it so difficult for me to
keep up with the rest in styles.”
“Now, John, what do you think of that?”
the Old Storekeeper asked. “Here, I give that
ungrateful girl all the money she asks for to
get clothes with and only stipulate that she
buy them in Hampton, and she goes back on
me like that.”
“And I’m certain,” said Barlow, “that as far
as results go, she makes it appear as if she
dressed in the city and the other girls in the
country.”
“Oh, yes, I know. Of course you men will
stand up for one another, but every woman
knows that you simply cannot get nice clothes
and buy them in a little town like this.”
“That opens a chance for me to learn some-
thing to my advantage,” said Barlow. “Pardon
me if I talk shop, but we seem to be drifting
that way, and as I’m trying just now to make
my store the kind of a store that suits people,
women especially, I'd like to have a woman's
point of view on what this town needs and will
support in the way of a general store. We want
to keep just the things in the way of dry goods
and groceries that the women want to buy.
How can we do it?”
52
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“That's right, John;” said Jenkins, “make
her tell you now what the reason is that she
wants to shop in a bigger place.”
“Well, sir, I will tell you. I'm not a store-
keeper myself, and I don't pretend to know
the reasons why you can or can't do things,
but I know what women like and that's all I
can go by. The trouble with the stores in this
town is that they are about ten years behind
the times. They never have any of the little
things that you see in all the city stores, little
novelties of dress that don't cost much, things
that girls are always wanting. That's what
makes it fun to shop in a big place. You are
all the time coming across little things that you
didn't know about, that you want—and here
you never see anything new.
“Then the merchants here all buy so much of
a kind. If I get a shirt waist pattern, there
will be at least eleven more of them because
you never get less than a dozen. It's that
same way with lots of things.
“And you get such freaky patterns in dress
goods. Why don't you get some advice from
some woman shopper in the city and then buy
what the women are going to want instead of
a lot of things that the folks you buy of want
to sell?
53
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“And you don't run stores here like city
stores. The clerks don't like to be bothered
to show goods, and there never is a price on
anything. The windows look as if the goods
had been piled in them to get them out of the
way instead of to show them. I don’t mean all
this for you, because you have really made a
great difference in your store, and I heard a
lady say just yesterday that she believed you
were going to make a regular city store out of it.
“Mama orders the groceries, so I don't know
so much about them, but I’ve heard her say
that she did wish that when she sent for Grogan's
shelled peas they wouldn't send her Hogan's,
which are nothing but a cheap imitation. She
said just this morning that she would give a
dollar if someone would start a store where
you could go and ask for something and get it,
or if they didn't have it, be told so in so many
words. She's read these anti-substitution things
in the magazine advertisements until she thinks
that every merchant is trying to cheat her.
“And then another thing I’ve heard her
talk about lots and lots of times is that she
never has any way of knowing how much she
ought to owe the grocer. She orders things
by telephone or from the boys that come around
and of course she can ask then how much they
54
“ He'ZZ be raising his own wages every day without saying anything
- to you about it.”

Talks by the Old Storekeeper
are, but sometimes they don't know, and some-
times the butter or the cheese will weigh more
or less than she ordered, and by the time she
gets the groceries into the kitchen, she can't
tell anything about what they come to and when
the bill comes around, she just has to say it's
all right and let it go.
“She has tried to get them to send along with
the goods a slip saying how much they are, but
the boy always forgets it or says he lost it, so
what can she do. Oh, we housekeepers have
a hard time of it.”
“You housekeepers!” exclaimed her father.
“Yes, I expect you housekeepers do have a hard
time of it. I’ve noticed how haggard you look
from worrying over the meals and kitchen ac-
counts. Well, it's a shame. I’ll speak to your
mother and see that she doesn’t work you so
hard any more. I suppose she is out in the
kitchen now looking up something for you to
do in the morning. I think I'd better go and
speak to her before I forget it.”
As the old gentleman went out, Barlow said:
“Miss Jenkins, you have enlightened me a
great deal, and I thank you for it. I have a
number of ideas ready to put into execution,
and I have only you to thank for them.”
The rest of the evening's talk, however, was,
not such as properly to enter into these chapters.
..e.” 55
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
EIGHT H TALK
It was one of those warm, bright afternoons
in spring when everyone feels a little too warm
for their clothes, and when everyone who has
any housecleaning to do is doing it, and every
man who can leave his store is raking up his
yard Or beginning a garden so as to have some-
thing for the late frosts to spoil.
The Old Storekeeper sauntered along down
the street and stopped in front of Barlow's store
to finish his cigar before going in. One of the
clerks stood on the front steps and Tobias said
to him:
“Where’s Barlow P’’
“Home, making garden,” replied the clerk.
“Humph!” ejaculated the old gentleman, “’s
he going to selling garden truck this summer?
Well, I'll just drop in and wait a few minutes.
Maybe he'll show up.”
He stepped inside and stood by the door a
short time when a couple of ladies came along
and entered, followed closely by the clerk who
had been occupying the steps outside.
The ladies looked around, and as all the clerks
56
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
inside seemed to be busy, they turned to go out
again when they confronted the clerk who had
come in behind them. He greeted them, and
they then made known their wants, but the Old
Storekeeper who had taken it all in, walked
back through the store with an expression of
disgust on his face.
Henry Bilow who had just finished waiting
on a customer, followed him and found himself
the target for that disgust.
“You boys make me awfully tired sometimes.
Now look at that fellow standing out there in
front exhibiting himself to the girls going by
and letting the customers come in and he behind
'em. If I was the boss here, I'll just bet I
wouldn't be down at Hank's playing a game of
pool and leaving the store to run itself any old
way. That clerk wouldn't have been loafing
around out there if he hadn't thought the boss
was a good ways off. He may not be at Hank's,
but I’ll bet a dollar against a lima bean that
he isn't making garden.
“You know what would have happened—
say, by Jing! you know what did happen one
day when I came around and found you coming
into the store behind a customer, don't you?
Well, I may be too particular, but I used to
want things done the way I wanted 'em done,
57
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
and I never would have my clerks 'tending
store out on the sidewalk.
“I say, give a clerk a proper amount of time
off and expect him to be Johnny-on-the-spot
the rest of the time.”
As Mr. Jenkins and Bilow stood by the foot
of the stairs leading up to the second story, a
farmer came along down carrying a horse blanket
that he had bought. He was followed by a clerk
who was inquiring with a wide yawn on his face.
“That's all, I suppose?”
The Old Storekeeper looked at the clerk
and then at Bilow, and as the farmer said “Yes”
and went out by himself, he broke out:
“Well, I'll be hanged! Are you a success at
selling goods?”
The clerk said that he guessed he was just
average.
“Well, let me tell you something, if you will
allow me to have so much to say, if you are
'average, it doesn't say much for the average.
Why, you are half asleep. You yawned in
your customer's face—and you couldn’t stand
it to walk an inch farther with him than, you
had to. What's the matter? Afraid you
wouldn't be able to get back here again?”
“No,” said the boy, who was a youngster,
and really a pretty good sort. “I went to a
58
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
dance last night, and I’m just about all in to-
day. You can't expect a fellow to do a very
hard day's work the day after a dance.”
“No, that's so, I can't, and if you were work-
ing for me, I wouldn't expect you to do any work
at all. I’d send you home to rest up. I'd
rather have a man out of the way any day than
half serving my customers.
“Another thing, I’ll give you a lesson in
psychology. I never took any correspondence
school course in it either. I know from a plain
common sense point of view that when you say
to a customer, ‘What else would you like, Mr.
Smith?' you are a great deal more likely to
make him stir around in his mind for something
he wants than you are if you yawn out, ‘That's
all, I suppose,’ and don’t even call the man by
name. When you suggest, suggest that he
does, rather than that he does not want some-
thing else. Catch the point?” -
The boy said that he guessed the Old Store-
keeper was right.
Just then a clerk who had finished waiting
On a woman customer, came along back toward
the group, leaving the lady who spent a few
minutes looking over her shopping list and then
went out, hesitating on the way to notice one.
or two counter bargains. -
59
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“Now, that is what I call a downright shame,”
said the old gentleman. “A woman in the
store, wandering around, Iooking at the goods
and no one who cares enough about doing busi-
ness to offer to wait on her.”
“Why, I just waited on her,’
IIla, Il.
“You sold her a few goods that she asked for,
and then left her to get herself out as fast as
she could. Did you get all her money? Isn't
her credit any good? That woman wanted to
buy more. Maybe she didn't fully realize it
herself, but there were things she would have
bought.
“The right sort of a salesman never leaves
a customer until the customer leaves him. As
long as a customer stays in the store, there is
a chance for more business.”
“That's right and I agree with you, Mr.
Jenkins. I want all you boys to take all this
in and profit by it.”
y
said her sales-
This unexpected interruption came from the
office, and to the surprise and almost dismay
of the clerks, Barlow rose up from behind the
railing and looked the group over as he spoke.
“You here?” one or two gasped involuntarily
as they tried to think whether they had said
anything to make them trouble.
60
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“Yes,” responded Barlow. “I came in the
back way just before Mr. Jenkins left the front
of the store, and I’ve been listening, eavesdrop-
ping ever since. I don't know but I should
apologize, but y 9
“Not at all,” said the Old Storekeeper. “I
saw you come in.”
This shot placed the proprietor on the de-
fensive, and he turned a little red as he said:
“Well, I really was working in the garden,
Mr. Jenkins.”
“Yes,” said Tobias, “I know it. Mary Ann
said you were coming over to help her with her
rose bushes.”
With this parting shot he went out, leaving
them all laughing, except Barlow.
61
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
N IN TH TALK
May was drawing along toward its last week
when the Old Storekeeper drove up to the store
one day with his fast road mare and called for
Barlow to come out and take a spin.
“It’ll do you good,” said Tobias, “to get Out
and breathe a little pure air.”
“All right, I’ll come. I’ve heard a good deal
about that little bay of yours there, and I’d
like to see if she can really go any.”
As Barlow came out to get into the buggy,
a man with a G. A. R. button on stopped
him and explained that they were raising money
to defray the expenses of the Decoration day
services, as there had been no appropriation
made that year by the town for the purpose.
He asked for five dollars.
Barlow hesitated, and finally said:
“Well, I don't know. I suppose it's all right.
We have to have the celebration, but it seems
to me that they spend more money on it than
there's any need of. What do they do with so
much money anyway? You say you want to
raise two hundred and fifty dollars.”
62
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“Oh, they spend it for music. We have to
have a band, and we get flowers, and then there
are carriages for the lame soldiers and a good
many things. The money is spent carefully,
and I don’t think wasted at all.”
“Yes, I suppose so, but there seems to be
something every day. It's money for the fire-
men, or money for the churches, or for the band
or for the G. A. R. It keeps a fellow busy
getting enough for the charity end of his taxes.
I don't see that I can get out of giving you five
dollars, but it does seem as if this sort of thing
comes pretty often.”
“Mr. Barlow, you need not give me one cent
if you don't want to. The old soldiers are not
in need of charity, and we consider that the
observance of Decoration day is more a part of
the civilian's duty than of the old soldiers them-
Selves. I’m not asking alms, and really this is
not a personal matter with me.”
After saying this the veteran moved away,
and was about to start on, when Barlow called
him back.
“Wait a moment, Mr. Shirley. I didn't mean
anything of that sort. I want to help you
along. It's every man's duty I suppose, and
you just put me down for five dollars on that
paper.”
63
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“All right, Mr. Barlow. Thank you, sir.”
said the soldier, stiffly.
Barlow got in with Tobias, and they were
whirled away behind the little bay mare. For
a block or so neither spoke, then the Old Store-
keeper could keep quiet no longer, and exclaimed:
“Say, John, do you treat every man with a
subscription paper like that?”
“Why, I don't know,” answered the younger
man. “I don't like to see them come around.
I guess it's a good plan to discourage them
as much as possible.”
“That's right where your dull, my boy. Do
you suppose the man after the money likes his
job any better than you like to have him come?
Did you ever have a man come in with a paper
raising money for his own use?”
“No, I don’t know as I ever did.”
“No, and you probably won’t. Now you've
made Mr. Shirley mad, and that means that the
whole G. A. R. post here will know what you
said and think that you look upon them as a
lot of sharks. You can’t afford to make people
feel that way. If you had saved the five by
the means, I could see some sense in it, but you
gave him five just the same, and so you got no
credit for the contribution because you made
it under protest.
64
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“You certainly do fall down the worst in
some ways. Let me give you a little piece of
advice. When a man comes around with any
kind of a subscription paper at all, be polite to
him. Ask him to sit down and tell his story.
Listen to him without a murmur, and when he's
through, make up your mind whether you want
to give and how much and tell him. Do it
cheerfully, and if you give, say you're glad to
help him, sorry it isn't more that you can give.
“If you think you can't give anything, let
him down just as easy as you can, and tell him
you are sorry, but don't on any account kick
and act like a cross child. It's darned seldom
you can’t give something and be benefited by
it, because the man you keep good natured that
way will remember it—and then there aren't
many of us that can afford to refuse to help
'most anyone that wants help. -
“I’m getting to be a regular preacher with
all this talking to you, but it's a long time since
I've found a chap I could hand out advice to
like I canto you without his getting mad about it.”
“That's all right, Mr. Jenkins. I guess I'm
a good subject for almost all kinds of advice.
I’ve tried to profit all I could by your talks, and
I've taken up pretty nearly all your ideas ex-
cept one.”
65
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“I suppose you mean by that that you haven't
reached a point yet where you think you are
responsible for your clerks’ honesty’’
“Yes, that's the only point we seem to differon.”
“Well, you know we all find occasion to change
our minds on many questions as we grow older
and wiser. I have an idea that on that sub-
ject you misunderstand me a little. You know
it isn't always possible to draw a sharp, dividing
line between honesty and dishonesty. Things
come up in a clerk's experience that are not
simply questions of taking what does not belong
to him, or not taking it. I’ve had a salesman
come in lots of times, and when I was not around
offer a clerk a good price to push their particular
line of goods to the exclusion of others.
“It might be that that line was the one that
we were pushing anyway, and it would seem that
in taking that money the clerk was not robbing
anyone. Then it might be that the line was
one that we did not push, either because we
did not care what line we sold, or because we
were trying to work off some other line.
“Then there are times when it might be policy
for a clerk to hand out cigars at the proprietor's
expense to mollify or gain a customer. From
that there might be all gradations clear through
to the clerks taking the cigars for his friends.
66
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
--
“I believe in impressing employes in the first
place with a distinct idea that what is yours
is not theirs, and can't be except after the giving
of a proper quid pro quo—that's all the Greek
I know. Lots of young fellows go into a store
with a notion that from then on, all the goods
in the store are partly theirs.
“I think it's a good plan for the proprietor
to make a practice of charging up to himself
all the goods he takes out of the store and in-
sisting that the clerks all do the same. If
he puts thern all on the same basis with himself,
they are more likely to feel the need for being
on the square. That will help to save the petty
encroachments upon stocks.”
“It's too bad about Bing's head clerk,” said
Barlow. “Did you hear what he did?”
“No,” said Jenkins. “I’ve been away a day
Or so. What was the trouble?”
“Why he was the most stupid of all embez-
zlers, if you could call him that. It seems that
he has been speculating a little on margins in
Wall Street, and started with a bit of money his
aunt left him. Not so long ago he lost that
money, and to save himself took a couple
of hundred dollars that Joe Morton paid to
him on store account when he was alone in
the store.
67
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
He never credited the money, but knew that
Morton was good, and the old man wouldn't
be dunning him, and thought he soon would have
enough to pay it and credit it up then. Of
course he lost that too, and the old man got
short and went to Morton for some money and
the theft was discovered. They took Mr.
clerk right up and put him where they can find
him when they want him. Serve him right
5 y
too.
“It's pretty hard on his poor mother though,”
said Tobias. “Not a cent to support her. I
happen to know their circumstances. And I'll
tell you one thing that makes me think pretty
hard about Bings himself. I didn’t know of
the clerk's dishonesty, but I did know that the
clerk was monkeying with Wall Street and
Bings knew it himself, and yet—there was his
money ready for the clerk to use any time he
wanted it. You can't tell me that Bings wasn’t
to blame some in that matter. I'll just take you
back, and go down and suggest to the old cuss
that we do something to help that poor old lady
out of her difficulty. Bings can let her boy off
scot free if he's a mind to, and I’d do it in his
place, and do all I could to get him started
right somewhere where he won't have anything
but his future in front of him.”

68
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“Then you can let me out here, Mr. Jenkins,
and I will go to supper before I go back to the
store. Much obliged for the ride. The mare's
a crackajack. I'll go with you again any time.
So long "
69
Talks by the old storekeeper
TENTH TALK
“I want a yard of unbleached muslin,” said
the Old Storekeeper to Henry Bilow, as he came
into the store one morning in early June. “I’m
going to try a little scheme I’ve been hatching.”
Henry deftly tore off the goods and rolled it
up and handed it out to Tobias, taking a dollar
and giving him back the change, all in less than
a couple of minutes.
“Now that's what I call quick service,” said
the old gentleman. “If I’d gone into one of
your modern department stores, I would have
been kept waiting about half an hour for them
to tie that little bit of muslin up in a mile and
a half of red tape. “Say, John,” as he saw
Barlow coming toward him, “I hope that with
all your improvements here, you won't get so
fancy in your methods that you'll adopt some
kind of a making change and doing up parcels
system that will keep people waiting an hour for
their goods and change.
“Downey, over here, has got so complicated
that there won't any of my family buy
anything there they can get anywhere else be-
70
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
----
.
cause it takes so everlastingly long to get change.
There's so blamed much red tape nowadays in
the big department stores that a man hasn't any
business trying to buy goods there unless he
takes a day off to do it.
“Why in the name of John Rogers doesn't
some man with a level head start a department
store where every counter will have its own
money drawer; where you can go and buy a
book or a box of sardines, pay for it, and walk
out with no time wasted 2
“People in the cities talk about their rapid
transit and thousand other time-saving schemes
—they've got to save time somewhere to make
up for the extra time it takes to buy the neces-
sities of life. You can't begin to get goods
at any of those big stores as quickly as you can
in any country store. -
“That's a great idea, Mr. Jenkins,” put in
Bilow. “Why don't you write it up and send
it to some trade journal?”
“Say, Henry, keep it dark, but I did do that
very thing. I wrote that scheme all up in
fine style and had Tip Blossom typewrite it
for me. Then I sent it to the best dry goods
and grocery paper I knew of. I didn't hear any-
thing from it, so I thought sure they must be
going to print it. I sent in a subscription be-


71
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
cause I wanted to see it when it came out, and
after about two months of watching the blamed
paper, the article came back and a little printed
slip with it that said something about ‘Rejec-
tion of an article does not necessarily imply lack
of merit.”
“You can have that paper the rest of the year,
John. It makes me tired to see it come into
the house.” .
“All right, I’ll be glad of it. I don't get any
trade journals, and I suppose there must be
quite a lot of news in them,” said Barlow, with
a very mild interest.
“You do, do you?” snapped Tobias. “Well,
if I'm any judge, you're about what the boys.
call ‘the limit' for a young fellow who claims
to be right up to date and who expects to run
his store on a modern basis. How do you ex-
pect to keep up with the times at all? Probably
you take the word of the travelling men for
what's what, or when you go to New York
you buy whatever they say is ‘the thing.' I
don’t wonder that the women of Hampton
find it a poor place to shop.
“Why, when I was running the store, I didn't
pretend to have a modern store, but I took and
read all the trade papers I could get hold of
in the dry goods or grocery line. If you haven't
72
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
had any of them, you haven’t much idea what
they would be worth to you, but they will
make the difference between buying in the dark
and in the light.
“No man who does any business at all can
afford to get along without them. You want
to subscribe for three or four, and read them
right through from cover to cover. You will
find that about half your stock is either out of
date or was bought at too high prices. The
trade papers all believe in advertising, and
they give you lots of good hints about how
to do it, but, by jing! they don’t believe that
advertising is all there is to running a business
right.
“When a man lives where he can’t get out
and talk with other fellows in his line and get
their ideas and air his own, the next best thing,
and it may be just as good, is to read the trade
papers. They give you the market reports that
you want, and whenever anything new that's
really worth having comes along, they tell you
about it.
“Of course it's all right to believe the travel-
ling men. They are a good lot of fellows, and
they can give any merchant tips if they’re a
mind to, but you can’t depend on them alto-
gether. Lots of merchants make a great mis-
73
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
take in the way they treat drummers. They
seem to think that they are a bunch of thieves,
and that the only way to handle a strange one is
to act as if he was trying to steal your overcoat.
“I always gave the drummer a show, and if
he was willing to tell his story right off without
any extra fireworks, I would soon tell him yes
or no and the deal would be closed. Then if
there was a chance to visit and I wanted to,
we might get right chummy. I believe that,
a man who comes to me to sell goods has the
same right to fair treatment that I expect from
the people I’m selling goods to. That doesn't
give him the right to use up my time in useless
talk though.
“The travelling man may or may not be an
evil, but he is certainly necessary. He has been
introduced into business methods, and he's
there to stay. Make the most you can out of
him, for that's what he'll do to you. I don't
mean that they aren't a fair lot of men, but,
of course, while they look out for their customers,
they have got to look out for their employers
first. Gee whiz! There's one now. I’ll make
my escape. So long. Oh, by the way, Henry,
Mary said that I was to tell you for her, ‘Yes.’
I suppose you know what she means.”
And the Old Storekeeper went out leaving
74
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
Henry in smiles, and Barlow wondering what was
the question to which Mary was sending Henry
an answering “Yes.” .
75.
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
ELEVENTH TALK
On the occasion of the completion of the
sale of the store and its delivery into the hands
of Barlow, the Old Storekeeper had taken ad-
vantage of the opportunity to give his successor
a good bunch of advice on divers and sundry
subjects. He had found Barlow rather over-
confident, but ready to listen to all sorts of
opinions with which he might or might not
agree.
The two spent one whole forenoon in talking
over store management and methods, and when
the talk was ended the younger man had a pretty
good idea of the way in which his predecessor
had done business, and the older a good insight
into what modern methods of merchandising
mean, as exploited by a chap with a head full
of theory but an utter absence of experience.
# The point that the Old Storekeeper empha-
sized most strongly was the necessity for having
the goods. As he put it, “If you don't have
the goods, you can’t sell 'em.”
Said Tobias:
“I built up my business just by having the
76
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
goods. I haven't anything against the new
ways of doing business and getting it, but I’ll
tell you right now that there won't any of them
amount to much if you don’t have what people
want to buy and have it when they want to
buy it. Lots of stores have gone into the
sheriff's hands just because the proprietors
didn’t know how to keep their stock up.
“Special sales are all right, advertising is a
good thing, and big window displays help too,
but the first rule in the book is to have the goods.
The next rule is to have them at the right time.
Right there is where I have got ahead of my
competitors more times than one. I don't
know that it takes a very long head to know
when spring is coming, or when Christmas
or Fourth-of-July goods are going to be in
demand, but I have noticed that some merchants
are always getting in seasonable goods just a
little while after the demand begins.
“The first demand for seasonable goods is the
best. People want such things when they want
them, and they don’t want to have to hang around
and wait till their neighbors all get them first,
either. The man who has the goods ready for
the first call makes the first sales, and the people
he sells to tell their friends where the goods are
to be had ; which makes more sales. Then a
77
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
dealer soon gets the reputation of either having
goods right on time or of having them late. A
blind man can see which reputation would be
worth money.
“Sometimes it takes nerve to go ahead and
buy such a stock of seasonable goods as will
supply the demand when it comes. There have
been lines of such goods that didn’t sell when
the time came. You've got to be a judge of
whether a certain kind of goods have had their
day. Every dog has his day, and the man who
finds himself loaded up with a big stock of
Irish Setters when Bull Terriers are all the rage
won't do much business. -
“You say you are going to be a big adver-
tiser. Well, that's all right, but you will find
darned soon that even advertising won’t make
folks buy what they don’t want, and it won't
make them buy July goods in August—unless
July with them is like it was with old Charley
McGuire.
“Charley had put in July working for Joe
Smith, and Joe hadn't paid him for the work.
Charley sued Joe. Sometime afterward, George
Youmans asked Charley about the matter.
‘Charley,” said he, “didn't you sue Joe Smith
for the pay for thirty-three days’ work in the
month of July?’
78
rava Tºussrºº
wº 2 * ~.
"A man who ſinds / imsely loaded left with a big stock of Irish setters
when buzz terriers are al/ the rage, won't do much business.”


Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“‘Sure,” said Charley, but, begorra, didn't
I wor—r—k Sundays?'
“There may be some risk in keeping up a
stock of goods that sell because of a fad of the
day, but you've got to do it, and just remember
that you are getting something more Out of
having those goods than the mere profit on
them. You are getting the reputation for
being up to date, and you are selling to every
customer for those things goods that they
would otherwise have bought of someone else.
“You know how it is yourself. You have
some friend you want to patronize. He's a
good fellow, and he buys goods from you
right along, but when you go to his store for
things, he doesn't have them. You either
have to take out of date goods or none.
“You are willing to stretch a point to do
business with him, and you do it. You take
some of his old junk a few times, and then after
seeing his competitors' windows full of Smart
things, just what you want, you drop in there
to get a few goods. You buy more than you
meant to, and the next time you want some-
thing, it isn’t so easy to go to your shiftless
friend's place. First thing you know, you are
buying altogether at the live shop. It isn't
your fault. You wanted to patronize your
79
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
friend. It was his own fault. He didn't have
the goods.
“As a way of getting the other fellow's busi-
ness away from him, I don't know anything
that beats just having the goods.
“Another thing that I’ve had impressed upon
my mind more than once is that people will
buy a better class of goods than you think they
will. That's a comparatively new discovery
of mine, and I haven’t stocked up as well on
higher grade goods as I would have done if I
had not sold out. You see people think of
the price of things when they are buying, but
they soon forget what an article cost if the
quality is good. Then they notice how well it
wears and they discover the economy of good
goods.
“You’ve got to have the cheap goods any-
way. People want them sometimes, and then
if you don't have the cheap ones, it makes it
harder to sell the good ones. When you have
them both, you can say to a man, ‘Here, we’ve
got those cheap ones, and we make more money
on them than' we do on the good ones. You
have to buy lots oftener, but the thing for you
to get is this, here. It costs half as much more,
but it lasts twice as long, and does twice as
good work while it does last.” That's the way
80
Talks by the old Storekeeper
to sell the better goods. You can stand behind
a sale of good goods too, but no one wants to
guarantee poor stuff.
“You can be just as nice to customers as
you want to be. You can put them under
obligations to you. You can advertise till
you are teetotally broke, and you can talk till
you're black in the face, but if you don’t have
the goods, people are going to go to the store
of the man who does have them, and you can't
blame them. -
“Keep a want book where it's handy for every
clerk, and tell them all what it's for. If any-
body calls for something you don’t have, see
that the clerk puts that item down in that book.
If you see goods advertised in the papers or
magazines in a way that's going to make calls
for them, put them down in the want book, and
be ready for the first call. Better have down
in the book fifty things that you decide it
isn't necessary to order than have one thing left
out that you Ought to get.
“The new goods are where the profits lie.
The old standbys that every dealer keeps have
the prices all cut to pieces on them. The things
that nobody else keeps allow you to make what
you please. Times are changing all the while,
and I’m not too much of an old fogy to know
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
that. A fellow can't keep up to date at my age
like you young chaps. That's one reason why
I’m selling out. I don’t want to leave the store.
I haven't a thing to do, and I’d like to work
here as well as play anywhere else, but it's hard
work for me to keep up to date. Well, you
needn't laugh. I know that you think that I
haven’t been bothered keeping any too near it,
and probably I’m not your idea of a modern mer-
chant, but you'll find before you have been run-
ning this joint many moons that the old man
wasn’t such a fool after all.”
There was much other advice that forenoon,
and Barlow took a good deal of it to himself,
but was there ever a youngster who would ad-
mit that he couldn’t give pointers to the old
man? As we have seen, Barlow found that he
was not too perfect to make mistakes, and as we
will see, he continued to make them.
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
TWELFTH TALK
Old Charley Morrison's drug store was next
door to Barlow's, and, such as it was, was
the best drug store in Hampton, but Hampton
was pretty short on good pharmacies.
Morrison did business in the same way he
had done it for forty years, and was satisfied.
In spite of his antiquated methods, he did quite
a business, for the simple reason that he had
the goods, and that goes a long way with cus-
tomerS.
It was the fourth of July, and Barlow's store,
like most of the others, was closed, but a drug
store of course knows no holidays, and old man
Morrison was keeping his open, sitting by the
back window with his feet up on his desk and
a cigar in his mouth.
He was ruminating in a satisfied mood when
the Old Storekeeper dropped in with a genial
“Hello, Charley,” and helping himself to a cigar
Out of the case, laid a dime on the glass and
walked back to take a seat by the older man .
who had been his business neighbor for so many
years, though not as successful in acquiring a
competence.
83
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“Well, Toby,” said Morrison, “don’t you wish
you were back in business again?”
“No, I don't, Charley. I haven't got the
hustle in me that I had once. I'll tell you
though, if I were back in the store, there are
some things I'd do differently.”
“Seems to me, Toby, that you did things
pretty well before.”
“Oh, yes, I know. I made some money, but
there's more than that to running a store.
And then there's money too that I didn't make.
I made a whole lot of mistakes in the way I
managed my clerks for one thing, especially at
first. I thought I knew it all, just as most young
fellows do, and I had to pay the penalty. There
are some things that I might have done in the
way of protecting my clerks from temptation
that would have made men out of several
youngsters who turned out to be rascals in
spite of all I did do.” -
“You always had good luck with your clerks,
I thought,” said Charley.
“As far as people knew, I did. I never told
any tales out of school, but say, a man I worked
for once when I was younger, used to say
that it was a straight road from the unwatched
money drawer to the penitentiary for some
fellows, and he was everlastingly hammering
84
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
into me the fact that his money drawer was
watched. I thought he was a crank on the
subject. I think now that he wasn't so far
off after all.
“You see, in those days there wasn't any
very good way of keeping tab on your cash
drawer like there is now, and the old man kept
us honest by keeping us thinking he was watch-
ing us all the while. He had some ideas that
seemed a little peculiar then, but I've found
out since that a good many people think the
way he did. I agree with him now myself in
his notions about the responsibility of a mer-
chant for his clerks going wrong.”
“Nonsense!” ejaculated Morrison, who had
never had any experience with clerks anyway.
“A clerk isn't entitled to a guardian any more
than his boss.”
“Charley,” said Tobias, “did you ever hear
of that old German proverb that says “Oppor-
tunity makes the thief?’”
“No, I don't know as I ever did. Why?”
“Because if ‘opportunity makes the thief,'
what about the man that makes the opportunity
for the thief? Seems to me that if the thief is
guilty, the man who deliberately makes the
opportunity for him to steal comes pretty near
being guilty too. Oh, I don't for a minute
85
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
let off the thief because someone else kept an
opportunity before him, but I call the oppor-
tunity maker responsible too. He's what Joe
Donnelly would call an accessory before the
fact, and you know the law deals pretty hard
with those chaps sometimes.”
“That all sounds like good logic,” admitted
the druggist.
“It is good logic,” Tobias continued, throw-
ing his cigar out of the window as he warmed
up to the subject. “I say that there isn't a
bit of excuse for the man who doesn't protect
his clerks and himself nowadays. If he thinks
it's economy to take his chances on the honesty
of a young fellow who knows a hundred ways
of spending money to his one way of earning
it, then it's fair to say if he loses, ‘Good enough
for him.' That's what I call economy gone
wrong.”
“I believe you're right, Toby,” said Morrison,
“I never thought of it in just that light before.
That’s all.”
“That's just what's the matter with thousands
of business men to-day. They can’t think of
anything but themselves. If a clerk steals,
they give him a bad name and turn him out
and leave him to go on down to the devil.
It doesn’t occur to them to think ‘Could I have
86
|
--
“There's an old German frozeró that says “OAAortunity makes
the thie/.'”
º






Talks by the Old Storekeeper
i
.
|
t
i|:* : *..'.# ..
-º-- ~ *
prevented it’? Can I prevent that man's
successor from doing as he did?’ There's
more to morality than simply escaping without
violating the laws the blooming legislature
makes up there at the capitol.”
“That's so, that’s so,” coincided Morrison.
“I don't know as I ever made mistakes in
managing my clerks because I haven't had many
clerks to manage. My greatest mistake was
in not tending to business when I was young.
I couldn't seem to settle down to it someway.
I had so many outside things—like playing in
the band and managing the baseball team, and
so on. I couldn't settle down and stay in the
Store.”
“Well, I don't mean to be preaching to you,
Doc,” said Tobias, “but that's right where lots
of men fall down. They can't stick to their
work. You knew Jack Blade over in Bloom-
ville? Well, his father set him up in the grocery
business when he got out of school. He'd
always had an allowance, and never knew what
it was to have more than so much money at
once. When he got a money drawer of his
own, he couldn't stand prosperity. As soon as
he found that all he had to do to get money was
to help himself, he began to do it every time
he went by it.
87
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“It wasn't so very long before he was taking
out more than his customers would put in, and
he was using most of his time in spending it.”
“No doubt about it at all,” Charley assented.
“It takes a man a long time to get to where
his money drawer isn't a temptation to him. I
believe that the only way is to begin right at
the first to put down every cent that goes out or
comes in.”
“Of course it is,” corroborated Tobias.
“You’ve got to do that or you won’t know any-
thing about where you stand. They say that
every man has his price. If that's so, he ought
not to keep a money drawer shaking that price,
even in installment payments, in front of his
face all the time.”
“You’re right and no mistake,” said Morrison,
as he got up to go out and sell a quarter's
worth of cigars to a customer.
While he was making the sale, the Old Store-
keeper's daughter walked by with Henry Bilow.
When the druggist came back and sat down,
he asked with the familiarity of a family friend
of long standing:
“Toby, it looks to me as if Bilow there thought
more of your daughter than he does of his job.”
“Oh, there's nothing in that, Charlie. Mary
Ann's just like her mother used to be. She
88
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
wants to attach every man she sees, and if she
can set two of them by the ears, she is perfectly
happy. I guess Bilow knows her too well to
fall in love with her. She isn’t the kind to tie
up to any man till she's had a few years of fun.",
“She’s a good girl, and my wife says that when
she does make up her mind to marry a man,
she'll make him the best kind of a wife.”
“They're the kind to marry, Charlie. We
know, for we both married girls who had had
hundreds of fellows after them. Girls that have
a chance to flirt a little before they marry
aren't so anxious to flirt afterward.”
“Same with men, too, ain't it, Toby 2” said
Morrison, poking his companion in the ribs.
“At that rate we ought to make model hus-
bands. Isn’t that so? Well, I must be going
or my wife will think I’ve eloped. Come up
and see us.”
“I’ll do it. Good bye.”
89
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
THIRTEENTH TALK
The day after the “Fourth” was a busy day
as days after holidays often are, and when the
Old Storekeeper dropped into Barlow's at clos-
ing up time, he found the force pretty tired
and ready to go home. Barlow himself was
cross, and lacked his usual hospitable mood
as Tobias came in.
As a matter of fact, Barlow had been cross
all day, and had taken particular pains to Snap
up Bilow on all possible occasions. The rest
of the boys had noticed it, and one or two had
cautioned Bilow, in a bantering way, to keep
away from the boss's girl or he would lose his
job.
Henry had taken it all good-naturedly, and
had not even lost his temper under the repri-
mands of his employer. He realized that there
very likely might be something in what they
were guying him about, and though he had not
yet reached a point where he considered himself
in love with the bewitching Mary Ann, yet he
was interested to an extent that made him un-
willing to back down, even when the risk of
continuing was counted.
90
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
Without appreciating Barlow's grumpy state,
the Old Storekeeper took a seat in his office,
and ignoring the rather curt “Good evening”
which he got, lit up a fresh cigar and leaned
back in his chair as if he had come to stay.
The boys pulled down the curtains and left,
and nothing was said by either of the men as
the younger worked vigorously away at his
books.
Finally the Old Storekeeper broke the silence.
“John,” said he, “I’ve come in to talk to you
about a very important matter.”
Barlow felt his heart sink as it used to when
he was a boy, and his father would say, “John-
ny, I'd like to see you out in the wood-shed.”
He lost all his gruffness as he asked:
“What is it, Mr. Jenkins?”
“John,” the older man replied solemnly,
“I’ve just been reading your last ad in the
‘Chronicle,' and it isn't worth a-a-a darnſ
I'd like to make it stronger, but I don't believe
in setting young men a bad example.”
To say that Barlow was relieved would be
to put it very mildly. He brightened up at
Once, all his surliness gone.
“Why, what's the matter with it, Mr. Jen-
kins P’’
“Matter? Why, it looks as if they had
91
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
tried to run off the paper without getting an
impression of your ad on it at all. They must
have set it up with type that's been in the hell-
box for a year.
“Well,” said Barlow, “I guess that was partly
my own fault. They didn’t seem to have the
type and border my copy called for in anything
that would print.”
“Oh, I see. You get up copy for your ads
just as you did those sample ads they made you
get up for the Correspondence School Course,
and you have an idea that these country news
paper offices carry every type and border you
found in the specimen sheets the school sent
you. Well, you see they don't. If you’re
going to write ads for the Hampton papers,
you will have to go to the office and talk it over
with the printer, when you take the copy, and
have him give you the display type they have
that's nearest to what you want. You've
gone and learned a whole lot of rules about
making up copy that you might as well unlearn
just as soon as you can. The first rule about
writing ads for your local papers, is to write
the kind of ads they can set up.”
“You seem to know a good deal about ad-
vertising for a man who never would advertise,”
said Barlow.
92
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
*
“You bet I do,” went on the old gentleman,
“and I know a good deal more than I’ve told
you too. When I was a boy I worked a year
in a printing office, and while I didn’t learn a
whole lot, I remembered what I did learn.
That's the reason they never could get me to
advertise in their papers. I'd seen 'em printed,
and I knew how many papers there are to the
‘thousand circulation.' I never had any trouble
standing off the man when he came to get me to
advertise. I'd just tell him what I knew, and
he would shut right up and go away.”
“Don’t you suppose the weekly papers here
in Hampton have the circulation they claim?”
“No, of course not. What do they claim?”
“‘The Chronicle' says it has three thousand
bona fide subscribers. ‘The Times' says it
goes into four thousand homes, and ‘The Demo-
crat' claims that it has double the circulation
of all the other papers published in Hampton.”
“Tommyrot!” ejaculated the Old Storekeeper.
“I go around and visit with the editors of these
papers a good deal, and between you and me,
the whole three don’t mail over ten thousand
copies, and probably a quarter of those go beyond
the reach of your store.”
“What makes 'em lie so about it then?” asked
Barlow.
93
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“Oh, the circulation of a newspaper is a fair
subject for exaggeration. You or I might call
these figures they give you lies, but the pub-
lishers call them “circulation statements’ or
some other fancy name, and let it go at that.
I don't say but that there are publishers who
tell the truth about their circulation, but you
won't find them on the small papers. If a
man is running a paper with a small circulation
he can’t afford to tell the truth. If he's a
Truthful James he’ll have to get on a big paper
or go Out of business. How much do you pay
these papers?”
“I pay ‘The Chronicle' fourteen cents an inch,
and I pay ‘The Times'—let's see; I pay them
the same price, but they make me a special price
as an inducement to take a large space; their
regular price is about a fourth more. I pay ‘The
Democrat' twice as much.”
“Yes, and if you were a patent medicine
manufacturer a thousand miles away, or a
baking powder company, they'd take your ad
for about ten per cent less, and allow you ten
per cent beside and send you a copy of the
paper free. If I were in your place, when it
comes time to renew he contract with these
papers, I’d have a long confidential visit with the
man, and try to get them down a little nearer to
94
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
hard pan. I don't pretend to know much about
advertising, but I’ve seen enough of country
newspapers to be onto a few things, and I
won't charge you a cent for the information
either, I wouldn't think of telling you any-
thing, about writing ads. You make good Ones
as far as the writing goes. They are catchy
and attract attention. All the women at our
house read them and other people do too. They
tell something about the goods, and they tell
how much they cost, which is the main thing;
but you can't learn how to do business with
people, either in selling them things or in buying
something from them, whether it's advertising
space or pig iron, in any way except by ex-
perience and you are getting that already.”
“No doubt about that,” admitted Barlow.
“Experience is the only thing that will teach
a young fellow—or an old one either, I guess,”
said Tobias. “Well, I won't bother you any
longer. Good night. Come up sometime.”
That the Old Storekeeper's talk set Barlow
thinking was evident from the fact that when he
was left alone, he immediately proceeded to
get down the files of the local papers and look
them through. His mind had been diverted
from the channels of love; a good thing when a
young man's fancy turns to jealousy.


95
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
FOURTEENTH TALK
The first Friday in August was a very hot
one. About the only business in town was
being done around Charley Morrison's soda
fountain, and the streets were practically do-
serted.
About the middle of the afternoon tho Old
Storekeeper walked into Barlow's with a step
as jaunty as if the thermometer was not at
that very moment standing at ninety-two in
the shade. Barlow was sitting in the office
with his feet on his desk, smoking a Pittsburgh
stogie.
“Times must be pretty good, eh,” said Tobias.
“The boss sits back in the office with his feet on
the desk and a fine Havana perfecto to keep him
company. What's been doing this week? Peo-
ple buying goods faster than you can get them?”
“No, not as bad as that,” answered Barlow,
“but it's been a mighty good week up to to-
day.”
“You seem to be taking it pretty easy for a
man doing the business you pretend to be doing.
How does it happen that I never see you out in
front waiting on customers? You aren't getting
* 96
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
too proud for that, are you? Lots of men have
made a failure of business just because they got
to the private office stage too quick.”
“I don’t think I could be accused of that,”
said Barlow, calmly. “I have an idea that in a
business of this size there is enough office work
to keep one man's time pretty fully occupied,
and it would be foolish for him to take his own
labor which is worth a good big salary managing
hig business and put it cut there in the store
behind the counter where it could not earn
more than twelve or fifteen per.”
“That's all right,” Tobias remarked, “if
you're sure your business is big enough to Sup-
port a manager, but there are mighty few stores
in a town of this size that don't call for the boss
to take off his coat and do a little manual labor
on occasions. The people like awfully, well to
do business with the high man. The personal
element counts for a whole lot in the smaller
towns, and the man who gets delusions of grand-
eur is apt to find the other fellow getting the
business. ~.
“Your course in that school probably taught
you the whole thing about getting business,
but these correspondence school courses are
a good deal like what Charley McGuire said about
the Bibie. He said "Th' Bible’s a great Book,
97
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
but I’ll tell ye, there's a dale more lift out of
it than was ivver put into it.'
“I see you've got a couple of new clerks. How
do they seem to take hold?”
“Oh,” Barlow answered, “they seem to get on
well enough, but they're a little inclined to
wait to be told what to do. The fact that there
is dust lying around to be wiped up or a show
case that needs re-arranging doesn't appeal to
them as much as the sporting page of the daily
paper.”
“No, nor it won't. If you expect an ex-
perienced clerk in a store of this kind to be
keeping his eye out for something to do between
times, you are wasting your expectations.
The man who has stayed behind the counter
long enough to be ‘experienced’ is pretty apt
to be lacking in ambition. There are exception-
al cases, but they don’t spoil the rule.”
“You don't mean to say, do you, that there
aren't any good, ambitious fellows behind the
counter?” -
“Well, there aren't any too many of them
that have been there very long. If a man is
really the red hot stuff, he is too good to stay
behind the counter as a clerk for very many
years. -
“I divide clerks into three kinds; the kind
98
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
that start right, the kind that end right, and the
kind that are never right. Most clerks start
right, but deliver me from the chap who is ab-
solutely perfect the first week. What a wonder
he is! He can’t work hard enough. He has
no bad habits. He never smokes, drinks, or
swears, and never has. He says that he always
goes to Sunday School, and that his mother
made him promise he would not go out nights
except to prayer meeting. In about three
weeks you'll need a detective to watch him.
He'll be raising his own wages without saying
anything to you about it.
“About ninety-nine clerks in a hundred start
in like a new broom. They are too good to be
true the first week. You think you've found
the long lost ideal. The second week takes the
edge off, and with the beginning of the third
week the ideal commences to get pretty badly
frayed around the edges.
“Then the man who is never right—well,
there's this much to be said for him, he starts
in wrong, and you know right away where to
place him. He makes all kinds of mistakes in
change beginning with his first sale. He doesn't
think of charging a credit sale until he's for-
gotten all about it. He puts the money in his
pocket when he's away from the money drawer
:
*
3.º
*
i
º
re
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
(and the rest of the clerks) and forgets all about
that too. In dress he looks like the last run
of shad, and he even smokes in the store.
Altogether you aren't likely to keep him very
long. If you do, he’ll soon be a red hot sport
at your expense.
“Then there are cigarette clerks who belong
in the ‘never right' class. I can spot a cigarette
clerk as far as I can see him. His clothes are
never neat, and his nails are always dirty. He
needs a shave most of the time, and he lets
customers go away without a struggle when
they don't take the first thing he shows them.
He isn't capable of struggling with anything
or anybody. Fate has the upper hand of him.
He is organized on the wrong plan, and he
doesn’t give a hang if he is. He'll never be any-
thing but just a cheap cigarette clerk all his life.
“There are other kinds of clerks who are never
much good. Some of them think they are going
to revolutionize the business, and want to do
everything in some freak way. Then there are
the fellows who are afraid of earning more
than they get, and consequently never earn as
much as they get. They watch the clock every
minute, and you can depend on it that they
won't wait on any more customers at a busy
time than they do at any other.
100

Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“Another sort won’t look at a customer
unless they think he will make a big purchase,
and some clerks will bring all their friends to
loaf in your store. Oh, there's no limit to the
kinds of N. G. clerks. Their name is legion,
and the longer they stay with you, the worse
off you'll be, the worse off'll be your cash ac-
COunt too.
“The clerk that ends right though, he is the
star. Don't mind the mistakes he makes at
first. When you tell him about them once,
he remembers not to make the same ones again.
When you catch this rare bird, keep him.
Give him every raise he asks for until his salary
gets to be as big as your own. If he is the real
thing, he won't be asking for a raise he doesn’t
deserve or can't get from somebody else. He
isn't the sort that bluffs you every pay day till
you raise his wages to choke him off.
“He’ll come down on time in the morning
with a fresh collar and a clean shave, go right
to work and be ready for the first customer.
He'll stand up to the counter and act interested
in the people he does business with. He'll
be right there till the whistle blows, and won't
go off to dinner in a hurry leaving a customer
standing around with no one to wait on her.
He won't grudge sparing a little of his dinner
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
hour on occasions, and he won't get mad if he's
asked to work a minute overtime. He's the
sort of a fellow who can have an afternoon off
if he wants it without your feeling that he isn't
entitled to it. He's willing to accommodate you,
and you are willing to accommodate him. It's
too bad there aren't more of him to be had for
money.”
“I’m not sure that I have any that are all
that you say a good One ought to be,” said
Barlow, “but I’ve got two or three that I’m
Satisfied with, and as far as the rest is concerned,
they do well enough.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” continued Tobias,
sarcastically. “That's one reason why so many
clerks just stay in the rut. Their proprietors
are satisfied. They think they do well enough,
and won't help them to amount to any more
than that.
“There's one thing about clerks that I'd
just like you to bear in mind, and that is that
the boss often has right in his fist the making
or breaking of a good clerk. I've seen a lot of
good boys spoiled by the wrong kind of a boss
and I’ve seen several pretty unpromising
youngsters brought into the home stretch good
and strong by the right sort of a trainer.
“There's the same kind of human nature
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
in a clerk that there is in anybody else, and it
takes the same kind of treatment to get the
best out of it. A clerk likes the employer who
isn't afraid to hustle packing boxes around a
little himself—and a little exercise is a mighty
good thing for the proprietor. He likes the
employer who is interested in him for more
than just what he can get out of him. He likes
him to fraternize a little, but no clerk will be
improved by too much familiarity. Don't get
too far above your clerks, but don’t let them
lose respect for you. That's about the meat of
the matter.”
“That's good, sound common sense all right,”
said Barlow, who had listened with interest
to the talk.
As a matter of fact, Barlow would have
listened with at least apparent interest to any
kind of talk by Mr. Jenkins because he was the
father of Mary Ann, and while he had been a
little jealous of Bilow, the latter was finding
that his employer had the money to do a great
many things to make himself more attractive
to a girl than a penniless clerk could do.
This condition had made Barlow very good
natured toward the world, and when the Old
Storekeeper started to go, his would-be son-in-
law accompanied him, and together they went
in to patronize his neighbor's soda fountain.

103.
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
FIFTE ENT H TALK
A week or so after the occasion of the last
visit of the Old Storekeeper to Barlow's store,
he came in one afternoon and invited Barlow
to go out into the country with him on a little
rent collecting trip that would take all the after-
noon. Barlow agreed to go although it was
Bilow's afternoon off and they were rather
busy. -
While the Old Storekeeper was after his
horse, an idea entered the mind of Barlow,
and with a smile to himself, he took down a
box of papers and selecting one, read it through
carefully, replacing it in the file just as Jenkins
drove up to the door.
As the young man got into the buggy, he
announced to the Old Storekeeper,
“You’ve given me a good many talks and
a lot of good advice, and here is where I’m going
to get back at you. You are interested in ad-
vertising. I know from the way you talk,
and this afternoon I’m going to give you a
little talk on what I know about advertising.
You think my ideas aren't all of them practical.
I'll show you that they are.”
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“That's just what I’ve been wishing you'd
do,” said Tobias. “I reckoned that if I kept
pumping advice into you, there would come a
time when the worm would turn, and I’d get it
back with interest. Now let's hear some of
your ideas.”
“Well, here they are—and if they show weak
points anywhere as we go along, I’d like to
have you call my attention to them.”
Then as the little bay mare began to warm
up to her work a bit, Barlow gave his companion
some of his opinions on advertising.
“In the first place, it is practically a foregone
conclusion that the very best advertising that
a retailer can do in ninety-nine cases in a hun-
dred is newspaper advertising. Other kinds
are good when you once have the newspaper
ads working well, but they are at best supple-
mentary. Your local paper goes to just the
people you want to reach, and it goes regularly
and frequently. Through it you can reach any
and all classes of people.
“It isn't necessary to consider any other
medium until the newspaper field is covered,
and you are using every paper that has a circu-
lation among the people who are within trading
distance of your store.”
“I should think,” interrupted the Old Store-

105
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
keeper, “that a newspaper with say ten thou-
sand circulation of which three thousand went
to your possible customers would be a poor ad-
vertising proposition because you'd have to
pay for seven thousand subscribers who wouldn't
be of any use to you.”
“Yes, that's so,” admitted Barlow. “You’ve
got to consider that in placing advertising.
I meant that of course. Then you have to have
a regular position in a paper to get good results.
You don't want to be on One page one day and
another next. Get a position as near top
of column, next to reading matter, as you can,
and pay whatever is necessary to have your
ad put right there every time. People will get
into the habit of looking for your ad if it's
always in the same place and new every issue.
“Of course if you are going to run the same
ad day after day, it doesn’t matter where you
put it. A good many merchants seem to think
that people will read the same old ads time and
again when they know they wouldn't read the
most exciting news or the most interesting
story a second time. Ads have got to be
changed every issue or it's money thrown away.
“Then a good many ad writers think that
the best ad is the one that will attract the most
attention—stop the most eyes on account of
106 l
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
its heading. They write headings that read
‘HUNDRI.D.S KILLED by not having our
grippe cure on hand, etc.”; or, ‘TERRIBLE
MASSACRE OF TURKISH towelling and
other goods, etc.” Every reader will see such
scare headlines the first time and will read them,
but the disgust that follows the reading will
hurt the advertiser, and will keep the same man
from ever reading his ads again.
“There is nothing like good, plain, sensible
talk for an ad, and the heading over it ought to
bear some relation to the goods advertised.
The man who taught me how to advertise
quoted to me once the following: ‘There's a
bit of advice about newspaper advertising, and
other advertising too which is best expressed in
the terse and slangy paragraph, “Don’t Get
Gay.”
“Anyone is foolish to try to write funny ads,
or to write ads in poetry. It's just like trying
to talk to someone over the counter in poetry
or jokes about the goods they are looking at.
They would forget all about the goods to wonder
what you meant by such queer language.
If ads are just ads and nothing else, people will
know that they mean business.
“The women have to be considered in about
every ad that's written. There aren't many
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
things bought in any household without their
opinions being considered, even when the goods
are men's clothes. The women are the money
spenders in every family, and they are the ad-
vertisement readers. The prices you quote in
an ad stick in the women's minds too. I don’t
think it too much to say that nine ads in ten
depend upon women readers for their effect.
I don't believe the men have much to say
about the buying of household goods anyway.”
“You don’t appear to have a very high opinion
of man's position in the family, Sonny. I
guess you're about right though. Go On.
You're head has more in it than I supposed.”
Barlow flushed a little and continued.
“Whoever you advertise to, you’ve got to
put the prices in your ads. Nobody will rush
right off and buy goods that are advertised
without a price. There won't be much rushing
anyway as a rule, but you have to put in the
prices or you’re wasting good space. That's
where I've been getting ahead of my competi-
tors. Since I’ve been advertising they have
increased their space, but they haven't used
prices. They seem to be afraid to put those
in for fear I'll know what they are selling for.
I don't care if they do know my prices as long
as the public knows them. Why, I can sell
108
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
canned tomatoes at a shilling a can with the
price advertised in all the papers when my
competitors would keep the same brand on
their shelves at ten cents if they advertised
them without giving the price.” .
At this point, the Old Storekeeper reached
his destination, and after doing his errand,
got into the buggy again and turned the mare's
head toward home. As they whirled along at
an increased speed, Barlow was about to start
about advertising again when they met
Bilow, with the finest livery turnout in
Hampton and the Old Storekeeper's daughter
by his side. Bilow was blossoming out. He
had evidently made up his mind that he would
try spending money on the girl himself and see
if his chances would not improve.
Tobias bowed cordially and Barlow curtly
to the smiling pair, and after that not a word
was to be had from the latter, although his
companion tried to start up the conversation
several times. The ride ended in silence,
though one of the two seemed more amused
than disturbed by the occurrence.
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
SIXTEENTH TALK
The day after the incident of the drive,
Barlow took a day off and invited Miss Mary
Ann to go with a little party he made up, to
Tyler's Lake for a picnic, and when the Old
Storekeeper came down street he decided to
step in and have a visit with the boys, and in-
cidentally to notice how things went in the
absence of the head of the store.
It was late in the forenoon, but he found
two of them washing windows. In the old
man's mind this was heresy. He had never
allowed the boys to wash windows later than
eight o'clock, and he didn’t hesitate to guy
them about it.
“Well, well, well, what’s the matter with
you fellows anyway? You must have fallen
asleep at the switch. How long does it take
to wash a window or so?” -
“’Morning, Mr. Jenkins,” said the boy called
George. “It is pretty late to be doing this
but you see this is our busy day.”
“Yes, so I judge,” returned Tobias, as he
noted that there was not a customer in sight.
“When the cat's away the mice will play.
110
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
How do you expect anyone to get into the store
anyway without an umbrella and a pair of arc-
tics? The time to wash windows is before
trade begins.”
“Mr. Jenkins, you are too hard on us,” said
George again. “It’s all my fault that we are
in the midst of this job at this time of day,
but when I saw the boss drive off, I said to
Pete that we'd just surprise him by having
these windows all washed and changed when
he came back, and as there didn’t seem to be a
thing doing, Bilow told us to go ahead. What
do you think of our windows lately anyway?”
There was a method in this last question,
and though the Old Storekeeper may have seen
that he was to be led away from the short-
comings of the clerks into talk of windows and
such things, he made no objection to it and
replied good naturedly:
“I’ve seen 'em worse—yes, I've seen 'em a
good deal worse. One thing I’ve noticed about
them is that you put prices on everything, and
that's all right. Folks like to be able to walk
in and say, ‘Give me one of those' without having
to ask the price. It makes the average man feel
about seven feet tall to buy things that way.
Women aren’t afraid to ask, but men don't
like to and are afraid it will be more than they
y
111
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
can pay. Far as I've noticed nobody cares to
admit that they can’t afford it, no matter what
the ‘it’ is.
“I’ve noticed that in my own case lots of
times. I was going by Bings' the other day.
There was a picture in one corner of one window.
I don't know the first thing about pictures,
but I knew thatmy wife wanted that one. I’ve
heard her speak of it sometime or other. Natu-
rally I wanted to get it for her. I'd have paid
a dollar for it, or I'd have paid five dollars,
but the darned thing didn't have any price on
it, and I didn't know but it might be something
rare, or maybe it was just stuck in there for
exhibition and wasn't for sale at all. I didn't
want to go in after it and not get it. That
would have shown my ignorance of pictures.
I didn't go in.
“One thing I do take exception to in your
window dressing, and that is putting posters
and strips right on the glass. Every time you
fix up a good window and then paste a poster
on the glass, even if it isn’t big enough to hide
the goods, it spoils the whole thing as far as
effect goes, because anyone going by sees only
the poster. It catches the eye before it has
time to get to the goods behind, and unless the
person is interested enough to stop, that poster
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
is about all they have seen. The window has
been dressed up in vain.”
“That's too bad,” said George, “because
they send us lots of nice strips on purpose to
put on the glass. I shouldn't think they'd
send 'em out if they're a poor thing to be using.”
“So far as the people who send them out are
concerned, they aren't a poor thing. They are
a darned good thing. These people who send
them to you want their particular goods ad-
vertised, and they don’t care whether your
window displays are seen or not. If you’ll
paste their stickers on the glass they are sure
to be winners and you can take what's left of
the attention attracted. The glass in your
windows is to be looked through, not at.
“I don't think you spend enough money on
your windows in the way of decorations to make
them attractive to the women. Why don't you
take some bright red stuff, ribbon and crêpe
paper and make up a red window to show off
some line of goods that will contrast well with
red. Crêpe paper is great. You can do any-
thing with it, and red is the most attractive
color you can get. Make the window trimmings
so red that there can't be a man, woman or
child go by without having a red spot left on
their mind. You can make it look rich by

113
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
using ribbon, and ribbon once used isn't used
up by any means. Save all the paper and Odds
and ends used in decorating the windows,
using them over and over as long as they're
clean and bright. *
“You don’t have to make a window red to
have a color scheme to it. I only mentioned
red because it is the best. You can't use one
color all the time though. There are a good
many good colors. The one you use ought to
be brighter in winter than in summer. Sum-
mer windows ought to look cool. Light greens.
or pinks are good summer colors. Yellow is
a poor color, because at night it doesn't show
any color at all.
“I haven't fixed a window in years, and when
I did fix them, we didn't give as much attention
to those things as they do now, but I was the
boss of every window the boys fixed up for me.
I told them what goods to put in and what
scheme to follow.
“You see, you want to put in goods that
people are thinking of buying, and you want
to keep each window down to about one line
of goods, or one price goods. The plan is to
have everyone who looks into that window
go away with one idea in mind, an idea that
will stay there long enough to do you some
114
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ſ?
ſiſ
|?
*
---
“You see, you want to put in goods that Aeople are thinking
of Özying.”


Talks by the Old Storekeeper
good. If your window is a hit-or-miss jumble
of all kinds of goods at all kinds of prices, a
looker may see something of interest if he looks
long enough, but you know the majority of
people only see your window as they walk
right past.”
“What do you think of having a live animal
in the window to attract attention?” asked
George. “Everybody stops to see what's there
then.”
“Yes, everybody stops all right,” said Tobias,
“and everybody 'rubbers' at the animal or
whatever it is, and then everybody goes away
to tell what kind of an animal they have in
Barlow's window, but as for the goods there
with the animal, nobody will know there were
any, The animal and other freak shows
are all right to advertise the store in a general
way, but as window displays they aren't worth
powder to blow 'em up. Window displays
I guess are just about like what Barlow told
me the other day about newspaper advertising.
He said that one thing you had to remember
in writing ads was to keep right down to common
sense and not get gay. -
“I think that if you can put any kind of
moving figures in a window, you have the
best kind of a window, provided that you make
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
those figures mean something that will associate
them afterward in the minds of the spectators
with the goods you were advertising there.
Motion attracts attention, and it may attract
attention to goods as well as away from them.
An ingenious boy can get a good many motion
exhibits out of a heavy, strong clock spring.
“I seem to be keeping you fellows from getting
these windows finished. I don’t believe you
will surprise the boss with new displays when
he comes back, not unless you get busy before
long. Anyway, it's time I was going to dinner.
I'll be in to-night to see what you've done to
the windows. So long.”
|

116
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
SEVENTEENTH TALK
For some time following the trip of Barlow
and Mary Ann to Tyler's Lake, a very pro-
nounced and conspicuous rivalry for the favor
of that capricious young lady occupied the
attention of the gossips of Hampton, who like
the idle women of any town, spent most of
their spare time in discussing the personal
affairs of other people.
It was obvious that Barlow and his clerk
were both in earnest and each determined to
succeed, though so far as anyone could see,
neither possessed any advantage over the other.
Barlow made every effort to appear the same
as before in the store with Bilow, and while
he would have given a good deal to have bounced
him, he knew that it would look as if he thought
he was being beaten, and were doing that as a
last resort.
Bilow seemed to have struck a gold mine,
and spent fully as much money in entertaining
the girl as his employer did. It all resulted to
the advantage of the young lady, who was kept
busy going out with one or the other of her
zealous suitors. .
117
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
The only person who showed any signs of
anxiety in the matter was the Old Storekeeper,
who was doing his best at home to get his
daughter to discourage one or both of the young
Iſle11.
The most satisfaction that he could obtain
however was characteristic of the girl, who
said, -
“Papa, those two young men get so much
pleasure Out of my charming society that I
can’t bear to deprive them of it. Of course
they are foolish, but all men are foolish. You're
a little foolish yourself, and I’ve heard mama
tell lots of things about your flirting when you
were a young man. Now run along and sell
your papers. I’ve got to get ready to go out
with Mr. Bilow.” -
In the face of such talk, how could a man
condemn his own daughter?
That afternoon Mr. Jenkins went down to
Barlow's with a vague hope in his mind that
something might occur to give him an Oppor-
tunity to talk over the delicate situation with
Barlow himself.
He found that gentleman in a mood which
was a curious combination of elation and wrath.
The Old Storekeeper was welcomed by Barlow
who sat in his office with bills of various de-

118
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
nominations spread out before him, and a
large sheet of paper containing many figures.
“I’m glad you’ve come,” said he. “I am in
need of advice, and while perhaps I wouldn't
have come to you for it under the circum-
stances, yet now that you are here, I'll tell
you the story.”
“What seems to be the matter?’’ asked the
old gentleman. “Have you found buried trea-
sure, or has somebody left you a lot of counter-
feit money?”
“Neither. You see these bills here? Well,
everyone of them is marked for identification.
They are bills that I have marked and put into
the money drawer. From the drawer they have
all disappeared—you might say paid out as
change, but I know better. I have put those
in one at a time and watched things. They
have disappeared in each case without the
corresponding appearance of a bill of larger
denominations which might haye been changed
and without any money having been taken out
for the purpose of buying smaller change. They
have been taken out without authority, and
with no replacing of an equal sum.
“So far you understand that I put the bills
in there for the purpose of catching a thief.
I don’t need to explain that to you. Well, I
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
have the bills, or at least this many of them
back again. They did not all return through
One channel, but have come from various
liverymen, merchants, the florists and others.
“The way I got them was by simply dropping
into those different places at one time and
another, and asking if they had any twos, or
fives, or tens they could let me have for a larger
bill. This excited no suspicion, and though it
was necessary to repeat the experiment several
times, it ended with me acquiring these bills
that you see.”
“Who took them P’’ asked the Old Store-
keeper, abruptly.
“That's the question,” replied Barlow.
“You think it was Bilow,” said the older man,
with characteristic directness.
“Yes, I think it was Bilow, I’m sure it
was Bilow. I know the bills left the store
while he was here, in every case. I know that
I got them back from men to whom he has
been paying a good deal of money. I know
that he has been spending more money lately
than he earned, and yet he has no debts. I’ve
drawn my conclusions. Henry is the guilty
man—but I couldn't prove a thing against him
by direct evidence.” -
“You know men have been hung before now
2
120
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
|
on less evidence of their crime than you have
y 9
“Yes, they have,” interrupted Barlow, eager-
3 y
ly.
{ { and have afterward been found inno-
cent,” added Tobias. “What did you want
my advice about?”
“Why, I want to know what to do,” said
Barlow, a little testily.
“Well, my boy, a man is a fool to act hastily
in a matter of as much importance as this,
and I would be foolish to advise you hastily.
I long ago made it a rule never to give advice
where it wasn't really needed, and then only
after thinking it over for twenty-four hours.
The only advice I’d give you now would be to
wait that long before doing or deciding to do a
thing. Think it over well, and if you like, I'll
drop in then and we will compare our ideas
after they’ve had time to ripen.”
It was plain to be seen that Barlow, like
most young fellows, had no patience with the
waiting game, but he was not willing to go
ahead unadvised, so not knowing what to do,
he finally said:
“All right, I'll wait. You come in to-morrow
afternoon at four and we'll decide then what to
do.” • ,
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
As Tobias went out a plan formed itself in
his mind, and he proceeded at once to its
execution.
To say that he was surprised at the down-
fall of his old clerk would scarcely describe his
feeling in the matter. He had been as certain
of Bilow's integrity as—well, as certain as
many a merchant is of that of some trusted
employe whom he has helped up from boy-
hood to manhood, and upon whose honesty
he would stake his life.
Though a sad commentary upon human
nature, it is nevertheless a fact that the Pinker-
ton annals are filled with the details of instances
where the services of the force have been called
in to discover the thief in cases where money
has disappeared while passing through the
hands of clerks who were known to be abso-
lutely honest, of whose integrity the employer
could not and would not entertain a doubt.
That such trusted employes are so often
guilty of embezzlement is due simply to the
fact that they are trusted too far. The im-
plicit trust is their temptation.
After leaving Barlow's, the Old Storekeeper
went into Morrison's drug store and told his old
friend the druggist to keep everybody out of
the store while he used the telephone a minute.
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
|
.
.-:---.--
--f. -:----
.-
Morrison went out on the steps and pulled the
door shut and pretended to be fixing the catch.
Tobias called up central, and asked for
Parker's store, Bloomville. Getting them
promptly, the following conversation ensued,
one end of which sounded thus:
“Hello, is this Parker's?”
“This is Tobias Jenkins of Hampton. Have
you a place in your store for a clerk?”
“Any kind of a place at all.”
“That'll do. I’ve got a young fellow on my
hands who is a first-class salesman, had lots
of experience and whom I'll vouch for. I
want to get him into a good store where he can
work up. He's strictly all right.”
“He could begin work Monday.”
“You can arrange all that with him. He's
a worker, and don’t care what he does so long
as it's honest.”
“All right. Much obliged. If you want to
know anything more, write me. Remember.
I guarantee the young man's character.”
“Good bye.”
- As the Old Storekeeper rang off, the druggist
came in, opening the door again.
“Much obliged, Charley. Just charge the
toll up to me.”
“What are you doing, Toby; running an
employment bureau?”
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“No, but just between you and me, Henry
Bilow is going to leave Barlow's, and I told him
I'd use my influence to get him a position.
Don't mention it to anyone.”
“I won't breathe a word of it. He hasn't
had any quarrel with Barlow, has he?”
“No, not a word. Barlow doesn't even know
yet that he's going. Raised the profit on drugs
up to eight hundred per cent. yet?”
“No,” said Morrison with a laugh. “I guess
I'll leave it at seven hundred. Come in again.”
As Tobias went out of the drug store, he
was surprised to see Bilow coming along with
a big bundle on his shoulder.
“Hello! Got a job of delivering?” said the
old man in greeting.
“Yes, I’m going clear down to Bob Baxter's
with this matting,” was the answer.
“I’m going right that way myself, and if you
don’t mind, I’ll ride with you,” Tobias said,
jokingly.
Bilow's assent was perhaps not as cordial
as it might have been, but the two started along
together.
They had not gone far before the Old Store-
keeper said abruptly:
“Henry, what have you been up to any-
way?”
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“What do you mean?” the latter asked with
astonishment.
“No use, Henry, no use. I'm too keen an
old man to think that you can live at the ex-
pense you are living nowadays and do it on
your salary and not get in debt to anyone.
Henry, you're taking some of Barlow's money
“You mean I'm a thief!” Henry exclaimed,
angrily. -
“That's it, my boy, but there's no use getting
mad about it. It's so, isn’t it?”
“Who told you? It's a lie!”
“No, it isn't a lie. I wish it was. How did
you get into it? I—I–why, Henry, I'd have
staked my bottom dollar on you. I can't tell
you how disappointed I am. You were the
best man I ever had in the store, and I thought
about as much of you as I would of a son.”
The old man's voice broke a little, but as Henry
said nothing, he went on. “I’ve had clerks
who were just naturally worthless, and I’ve
had clerks who couldn’t say 'no.' I've had
clerks who were ‘good fellows' and couldn't
help spending more than they got. With
everyone of them that went wrong, whiskey
or gambling did the trick. When they got into
trouble, they helped themselves instead of
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
asking me to help them. I'd help any clerk
who asked help, and I’d have helped you. You
were too good a man for rum or cards to tempt;
you had too much sense. It took a girl to make
a fool of you. Henry, you're old enough to
know that girls have to flirt. It's a man's
business to look out for himself. You can't
get a woman just by spending money on her if
she's worth having. You have to get that sort
of a girl on your merit. I do blame the girl
in this case a little bit, but that hasn't anything
really to do with your guilt.
“Henry, I counted on you. I swore by you.
I vouched for you to John in every particular
and I feel almost responsible myself y 3
“Mr. Jenkins, don't—don't talk like that.
I can’t stand it,” exclaimed Henry, almost
losing control of himself. Nobody is to blame
except myself—and the damnable system in
that store. If they would only fix it some way
so that a fellow wouldn't have the money drawer
saying to him all the while, ‘Help yourself;
help yourself; help yourself. Nobody’ll know;
nobody’ll know.’ Why, that has run in my
mind night after night and day after day when
I was wanting money worse than I can tell
VOu.’’ *
“How did you get started in this way, Henry?”
126
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
the Old Storekeeper asked, anxious to get the
boy to talk freely to him.
“Oh, it began a good while ago. It was the
way that Barlow acted about going with Miss
Jenkins. He knew that I couldn't afford to
do the things for her he'd do, and it made me
angry. I just raged at him, at fate, at every-
body, at the fiend that suggested helping my-
self to the money; at my conscience for saying
that it was wrong. I was working twice as hard
as Barlow was. I knew it and yet he got the
money. I asked for a raise and he refused me;
said the business wouldn’t stand it. I knew
better. I resisted and argued with myself
until I finally gave in, and raised my own wages.
A little wasn’t enough. Pretty soon I had to
have more; then it got to where I no longer
resisted or pretended that I was taking what
was rightfully mine. I just stole whenever I
wanted it. -
“What will they do to me, Mr. Jenkins f
Of course Barlow must know it. Will I have to
go to state's prison? Couldn't you talk to
him for me? Tell him I’ve made a terrible
mistake. Tell him I'll pay it back, every cent.
I'll work for nothing till it's paid. It must
not get to mother. It would kill her. I’ll
go and work somewhere else and send him all
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
my wages. I’ll do anything if mother only
needn't know—and Miss Mary.”
The boy sank on a horse block by the walk,
they were in the outskirts of the village, and
letting his bundle drop, buried his face in his
hands and his frame shook with sobs and fear.
The Old Storekeeper said nothing for five
minutes, and then seeing a couple of people
coming, spoke:
“Henry, there are people coming. Brace
up, boy. I know about how you feel. This is
not going to ruin your life. I’m going back
now. You go on with your bundle and return
to the store as usual. I don't promise you a
thing, remember, but I’ll see what can be done.”
They stood silent while the passers by got
beyond hearing, then Henry, whose eyes were
aflame and whose cheeks burned with nervous
excitement, exclaimed: -
“I don't care for myself, Mr. Jenkins. Truly,
I don’t, but please see if you can't help me. I
know you can. Think of mother finding that
I'm a thief. Why, she just about worships
me. She's brought me up—you know how she
looked after me when I was a kid. You told
me Once that my bringing up was what got
me my job with you. She was the proudest
woman you ever saw when you said you'd take
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
me into your store. She thinks you're the
greatest merchant in the country. You can
help me, Mr. Jenkins, I know you can, and if I
get out of this, God help me, I'll never get into a
like place again, if I have to refuse to work where
I’m going to be tempted so.”
After this the two separated and went their
different ways and who knows but that the
Old Storekeeper's recollection of Henry's mother
as he knew her when they used to sit across the
aisle from one another in the little old red
schoolhouse may have influenced him even be-
fore Henry had pleaded for himself?
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
EIGHTEENTH TALK
There has been much talk of late about tainted
money, but a sort of tainted money that has
received little attention is that which the
merchant has accumulated at the expense of
the ruin of clerks whom he has allowed to be
tempted to their downfall.
Thousands of merchants are alive to the fact
that their employes cannot handle the money
intrusted to them hundreds of times daily by
customers without being tempted. Out of
every hundred tempted, a certain number are
bound to fall.
Other thousands of merchants fail to recog-
nize the existence of this condition, and go on
doing business in such a way as spells the down-
fall every so often of some trusted clerk who
needed the money, and first borrowed, and then
stole, with an energy and a cunning worthy of
a good cause.
What satisfaction can there be in retiring
from business with the knowledge that false
notions of economy or careless store methods
have been the means of putting even a single
individual behind the prison bars! Who would
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
wish a fortune gained by the ruin of one life?
Such talk is not too strong for the case.
The clerk proposition is the great question
with the average merchant. The merchants
admit it. But they themselves are the cause
of most of their own trouble.
A day cannot remedy the faults ingrained
into humanity, but a general effort to protect
clerks from temptation, to influence them
for higher aims and better ambitions will result
in elevating the average immeasurably in the
present, and in building the foundation for a
future almost Utopian condition.
When the Old Storekeeper returned home
that afternoon after his talk with Henry, he
found that his daughter had come and gone.
Inquiry of his wife elicited the response:
“She came in from her drive at five and
found a letter waiting for her saying that
Harry was coming on the six-ten. She's gone
to meet him.”
“Harry!” exclaimed Tobias. “I didn't know
that he was back.”
“Neither did Mary. He wasn't expected un-
til the next troop-ship.”
It was just four o'clock the next afternoon
when the little bay mare trotted down the street
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
to Barlow's with the Old Storekeeper holding
the reins and a straight young fellow in army
blue on the seat with him.
They stopped in front of the store, and telling
the young man to come back in half an hour,
Tobias went in to talk things over with Barlow
as he had agreed.
He found the proprietor in his chair apparent-
ly waiting for him.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Jenkins. You are
prompt.”
“I don’t know of any excuse I could give
if I were not. Any man who can't keep his
business engagements promptly has no right
to be doing business.”
“I guess you're right. Have you decided
what kind of advice to give me?”
“I’ve been wondering a good deal,” said the
Old Storekeeper, what sort of advice you want.
I don't care to hand out a lot of good advice
only to have it entirely disregarded. Have
you found out anything new P’’
“No, things stand just as they did yesterday
afternoon.”
“And you want me to tell you what I would
do in your place?”
“If you think that would be the thing that
I ought to do.”
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“Well, in my estimation, the thing for you to
do is to bounce Henry without a word of ex-
planation, except to say that you can't afford
to keep him.”
“And let the scoundrel go without punish-
ment? Not by a damned sight!”
The Old Storekeeper shrugged his shoulders,
as much as to say, I didn't think you would take
to my advice. .
“Excuse me,” said Barlow, “but that seems
to me to be letting a man off pretty easy when
he has robbed you of two or three hundred dol-
lars.”
“Now, my boy, let me tell you something,”
said Tobias, sitting up on the edge of his chair.
“When you first came in here, I told you that
if you persisted in thinking that it was none of
your affair what your clerks did outside of hours,
you would have trouble on your hands. I told
you that the money drawer would be a tempta-
tion that some of the clerks would probably
yield to. .
“You thought you knew more about it tha
I did. You didn't pay any attention to what
your clerks were doing outside of the store—
at least not until you had to—you didn't try
to put any check on the cash so that you could
tell whether, you were being robbed or not.
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
You looked at the whole thing from your own
point of view. You were willing to take the
chances on being robbed. You wanted them
to like to work for you so that they would stay.
It wasn't up to you to be looking after the
morals of your men. If it wasn't for the matter
being so serious, hanged if I wouldn’t say
‘good enough for you,' and let you figure it
out for yourself.”
“I don't see it your way at all, Mr. Jenkins.
You're pretty hard on a fellow who has been
robbed. It's almost adding insult to injury.”
“Damn it, sir! Stop thinking so much about
yourself. You're not the only party injured
in this matter, not by a good deal. All you've
lost is a little money. Bilow is losing his
reputation, and a reputation isn't so easily
got that a man wants to lose one.”
“If a man doesn’t want to lose his reputation,
then he'd better be honest. That’s all I can
say.” •
“That's not much. I think you can say more
than that if you try. If you had had the sense of
a fellow of your age ought to have, you wouldn't
have been trying to get a girl to like you better
than someone else just by showing her that you
could spend more money on her than the other
fellow. I'm inclined to put the blame in this affair
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
where it belongs and some of it belongs at my
house I think. Henry is to blame chiefly, and I
haven't any desire to exculpate him, but there
isn't a bit of doubt in my mind that you might
have prevented the theft very easily.
“Now, according to your own story, the most
that you can do to Henry is to ruin his repu-
tation, and that even might get you into trou-
ble.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, you admit that your evidence is not
enough to convict. You could only discharge
him, and tell people that you did it because
he stole from you. Suppose he came back at
you with a slander suit? You'd have to prove
him a thief or settle. Of course that’s all talk,
but I want you to see that there isn't much else
to do but to follow my advice. You tell Henry
to go; that you can't afford to keep him. He'll
know that you know he's a thief. I’ll see him
immediately after his discharge and tell him
that I hear that he's lost his job. He'll know
that I know about it. I'll tell him that I have
another for him, one where they want an honest
man, and that I've recommended him and agreed
to vouch for him, and that he's to take the job
whatever it is. He'll understand. It will make a
man of a fellow who will simply be driven to
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
the wall if you do as you'd like to do about it.
“I know of a position I can get for him, and
it’ll take him away from Hampton and his
temptations here. It will save you some em-
barrassment too. Would you want on your
conscience the imprisonment of a man who had
become the victim of your business methods—
or rather your lack of them? Would you want
to be meeting him on the street every day
and thinking “There's the man I made a thief ?’”
“No, I don’t know as I would,” John an-
swered.
“Well, that’s what it would amount to. Now,
look here, John. It will be lots better for you
as well as for Henry if I just get him started
right in somewhere else. You see, you are more
to blame in this case than you would be in an
ordinary case of a dishonest clerk. You might
have saved all this trouble if you hadn’t been
so overbearing about Mary. It wasn't in nature
for a man to stand it. A man offers his clerks
temptation enough in doing business the way
you do without getting them mixed up in any
money spending contest over a girl.”
“I did my best to keep him out of this, I'm
sure,” said John.
“Yes, I know. You did and yet you didn't.
I saw how it was going all the time, and to be
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
honest, I suspected the outcome a good while ago.
A girl will make more kinds of a fool of a man
than anything else will.
“But, the girl part of the matter out of the
question, you don’t know human nature as well
as you might. There isn't very much abso-
lute honesty lying around, not near so much as
there ought to be. It's pretty much compara-
tive, and gives in to temptation when the
temptation gets strong enough. I believe that
one reason why so many clerks go wrong is
that lots of them, most of them I guess, begin
to work in a store before their characters get
their growth. They're green you might say.
“If you take a half-grown boy and put him
at work that's too hard for him, you'll spoil
his body. If you take a boy and overtax his
half-grown moral strength, why won't it ruin
that too? Boys get their moral health under-
mined like that, and when the strain comes some
day, they can't stand up under it. I think
honesty gets along best when it isn't tampered
with. It's no way to make a man honest or
to keep him honest to be all the time inviting
him to be dishonest. If you want a man to
let drink alone, you don't keep leading him up
to the bar and asking him to have a drink,
do you?
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Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“There are a couple of old saws that you
might just bear in mind if you're anxious about
the honesty of your clerks. One is that ‘A stitch
in time saves nine,’ and the other says, “An
ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.’
If you want to keep from having any more
clerks go back on their consciences, you'd better
get busy and see what you can do to take some
of the strain off from them.
“The thing just now though is to undo the
wrong done to Henry. Here's a chance for
you to do the right thing and repair the results
of your own carelessness. Will you do it?”
Barlow twisted uneasily in his chair and
grew red in the face as his anger waxed hotter.
At last however, when the Old Storekeeper
had waited patiently for sometime, the younger
man regained control of his wrath, and getting
up, held out his hand to the old gentleman.
“I’ll do it, Mr. Jenkins. You are right. I'll
speak to Henry in the morning.”
“John, I'm obliged to you,” said Tobias,
with tears in his eyes. “You are the man I
thought you were. I’ll see Henry to-morrow
when he leaves here. Now, there's my rig out
in front. Come out and see a young fellow
who's a friend of mine.”
The two walked along out to the curb where
.
ſ
138
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
the mare stood, tugging uneasily at the reins
held by the chap in the blue uniform.
“John,” said the Old Storekeeper, “this is
Harry Porter, just from the Philippines. He
says he's going to take our Mary back with him
when he goes. Harry, you’ve heard us speak of
Mr. Barlow.”
Though Barlow's heart thumped as if it
would burst through its walls, he proved that
his sporting blood was good by congratulating
Porter warmly and without hesitation, though a
depth of feeling too great for words was plainly
written upon his face as the other two drove
off.
The next forenoon the Old Storekeeper
dropped into Charley Morrison's in order to be
where he could keep his eye out for Bilow when
he left the store. The druggist was kept busy
with customers, and his visitor was left largely
to himself, and after waiting for perhaps half
an hour, he was rewarded by Bilow's appearance
with about as dejected an air as a young man
could well possess.
As he passed the door, Tobias stepped out
and joined him.
“Well, Henry, want to take a little walk
With me?”
139
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
“I’m ashamed to, Mr. Jenkins.”
“Hold up your head, boy,” said the old man,
encouragingly. “As far as the world knows
you are the same Henry Bilow that you have
always been. What sort of a talk have you
had with John, or hasn't he spoken to you?”
“Yes, he bounced me, I tried to say some-
thing. I wanted to confess and tell him that
I would pay him every cent as soon as I could save
that much money, but he wouldn't let me say
a thing. Just paid me up, and told me that he'd
found that he couldn’t afford to keep me any
longer. I would have felt a good deal better
if he would have talked it over with me.”
“Never mind, I’ve got things fixed for
you in a way. I don't want any thanks for
what I’ve done. Maybe I haven’t done it
altogether on your account. I’ve got a place
for you over in Bloomville. It may not be much
of a place, but you won't be hurt any by be-
ginning at the bottom. You are the right sort,
and you'll soon be on your feet again. I want
you to make me your banker, and send me money
as fast as you can until you've saved enough
to pay John what you have taken from him as
nearly as you can estimate it.” -
“I’ll do it, Mr. Jenkins, I'll y 9
“Wait a minute. Now, this has been your
140
Talks by the Old Storekeeper
first offence, and you're getting off pretty easy.
A repetition of it would mean state's prison
and nobody would help put you there any harder
than I would. I have told the man you're
going to work for that I would be responsible
for you to any extent. You haven't got to
think about your past, boy; you're going to
begin over again, and you're going to be honest.
You won't have the reason for spending money
there that you had here. You won't have the
same temptations confronting you. The store
you're going into is run with a view to cutting
out temptation to clerks. Now, I want you
to promise me that you will be honest to a
hair's breadth.” * -
Henry held out his hand and the Old Store-
keeper took it.
“I’ll be an honest man, Mr. Jenkins, and I
have you to thank for it. I wish that mother
could know what you've done for me.”
“Not a word, boy, I'll call for you Monday
to take you to Bloomville.” -
“I’ll be ready, Mr. Jenkins. Good bye.”
141
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Talks by the old
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