AMUSING EXPERIENCES.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2929, 1 August 1911, Page 7

AMUSING EXPERIENCES.

A traveller had been talking his hardest, his most eloquent, tis most persuasive, for nearly an hour to a shrewd old Yorkshire business man. The old fellow seemed convinced and pleased, and the traveller thought he had his fish landed. But - the Yorkshireman said : 'There's roa lad Jock —Ah'd laike him to hear what ye have to say. Will ye coom this afternoon, and go over your talk again ?"

, "Certainly, sir—with pleasure !" replied the traveller, heartily, and at the hour appointed presented himself again for the interview with father and son. Again he went over the points of the article he had to sell—forcibly, eloquently, persuasively. Never had he acquitted himself of a finer "sel'ing talk."

When he had finished the old Yorkshireman turned to his son and;aid, enthusiastically : "Do ye hear that, Jock ? Well, now, that's the way I want ye to sell our goods on the road !"

It is part of the commercial traveller's training to learn how to take disappointments such as the above —and snubs as well—with unruffled temper.' Were he to regard every business discourtesy as a personal affront, he would soon drop out of his calling. Frequently Jhe buyer's brusqueness and rudeness are entirely impersonal—the result of being pestered to the limit* of irritation by incompetent and tactless salesmen. He wants to "kick the cat," and the next traveller who call receives the pent-up irritation.

I This was forcibly brought home to ! the senior partner of a -big publishing house who called up one of his i book canvassers for a lecture on the j poor "returns" he was making. The chief asked bim to give a demonstration of how he tried to sell his books, and the traveller did so. There seemed to be nothing wrong ! with it—it was dignified, respectful, and convincing. But the chief thought he could improve upon it, so he told the traveller to sit at his roll-top desk and play the part of a customer while he himself went outside to act the role of canvasser. The chief, outside the room, knocked at the office door. No answer.

He knocked again, louder. Still no answer. S 0 he opened the door and walked in, to find the traveller with his feet on the roll-top d?sk and a pipe in bis mouth.

! "Get out !" said the supposed customer.

'"But I want to show you " began the astonished chief.

"Didn't you hear me ? Get out of my office !"

•"But you don't know what I "

"I don't want to know ! I don't care who you are !" shouted the traveller, rudely. "You're the sixteenth traveller.that's called here to-

day, and that's enough for me. Go to Jericho !"

Occasionally, however, it "is the commercial who gets the best of such a wqrdy customer, and when he does it is because he keeps an unruffled temper. The head of a large firm was very surprised one morning to receive this letter from a business man to whom his travellers had before managed to sell goods :

"Dear Sir,—The enclosed order is due to the infernal impudence of the young man you sent to call on me. Where did you pick him up ?"

The chief at once called for the young traveller and asked why he had dared to be insolent to a possible customer, and how such impudence could possibly ha. r c gained the order.

"Well, sir," replied the young fellow, "you told me I was to treat iny clients according to their individual temperaments, and I was only obeying your orders. When 1 entered Mr. Blank's office 1 had to stand for quite three minutes before he even looked up from his papers. When he did look up he snapped out, ' What bloodsucking firm do you represent ?' So I handed him one of our cards and replied politely, 'These poisonous vampires,' and it seemed to tickle his fancy."