the swelled head. No one learns quicker than he that one pebble does
not make a whole beach.

Another way in which a house can handle its salesmen badly is by not
treating his trade right. Many firms that carry good strong lines
persistently dog the customer after the goods have been shipped.
Whenever a house abuses its customers it also does a wrong to its
salesmen. I know of one firm, I will not say just where, that has had
several men quit--and good salesmen, too--in the last two or three
years, because this firm did not treat its salesmen's customers right.
For this reason, and this reason only, the salesmen went to other
firms, that knew how to handle them and their customers as men. With
their new houses they are succeeding.

Too many heads of wholesale firms get "stuck on themselves" when they
see orders rolling in to them. They fail to realize the hard work
their _salesmen_ do in getting these orders. I know of one firm
that almost drove one of the best salesmen in the United States away
from it for the reasons that I have given. They dogged him, they
didn't write him a kind word, they badgered his trade, they thought
they had him, hard and fast. Finally, however, he wrote to them that,
contract or no contract, he was positively going to quit. Ah, and then
you should have seen them bend the knee! This man traveled for a Saint
Louis firm. His home was in Chicago, and when he came in home from his
trip his house wrote him to come down immediately. He did not reply,
but his wife wrote them--and don't you worry about the wives of
traveling men not being up to snuff--that he had gone to New York.
Next morning a member of the firm was in Chicago. He went at once to
call upon their salesman's wife. He tried to jolly her along, but she
was wise. He asked for her husband's address and she told him that the