hand, sor.'

"Not only did Larry give me a good order, but he went to two more
merchants in the town and made them buy from me. He bought every
dollar's worth of his goods in my line from me as long as he lived."




CHAPTER II.

CLERKS, CRANKS AND TOUCHES.


Many a bill of goods is sold on the road through the influence of the
clerk. The traveling man who overlooks this point overlooks a strong
one. The clerk is the one who gets next to the goods. He checks them
off when they come in, keeps the dust off of them every day, sells
them to the people and often he does the selecting of the goods in the
first place. A merchant usually buys what pleases the clerks in order
to get them interested. In this way he puts a sort of responsibility
upon them. If the business man neglects his clerks, they neglect his
business; if the traveling man ignores the clerks, they ignore the
traveling man.

But in this matter the salesman must go just so far and no farther,
for the moment that the merchant begins to think the traveling man is
influencing the clerks unduly, down comes the hatchet! A hat man once,
as we rode together on the train, told me this incident: