CHAPTER III.

SOCIAL ARTS AS SALESMEN'S ASSETS.


Salesmanship has already been defined as the art of overcoming
obstacles, of turning defeat into victory by the use of tact and
patience. Courtesy must become constitutional with the drummer and
diplomacy must become second nature to him. All this may have a very
commercial and politic ring, but its logic is beyond question. It
would be a decided mistake, however, to conclude that the business
life of the skilful salesman is ruled only by selfish, sordid or
politic motives.

In the early nineties, I was going through Western Kansas; it was the
year of the drought and the panic. Just as the conductor called "All
aboard" at a little station where we had stopped for water, up drove
one of the boys. His pair of bronchos fairly dripped with sweat; their
sides heaved like bellows--they had just come in from a long, hard
drive. As the train started the commercial tourist slung his grips
before him and jumped on. He shook a cloud of dust out of his linen
coat, brushed dust off his shoes, fingered dust out of his hair, and
washed dust off his face. He was the most dust-begrimed mortal I ever
saw. His ablutions made, he sat down in a double seat with me and
offered me a cigar.