"STAR" TALES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7424, 10 June 1902, Page 4

"STAR" TALES.

BREEZY, GROCER'S CLERK. (By J. GEORGE FREDERICK.) When the prosperous thougli unprogres■ive firm of Casper W. Leslie and Co., grocers, hired him they thought they had se- i cured «m ordinary clerk, and gave themselves no further concern. They already bad a force of about a dozen clerks, be-' sides half a dozen delivery teams. They had hired clerks for twenty years, and it wad to them a troublesome and vexatious proceeding. They frowned at first at his slight frame, but when he put a, prostrate ■ gugar barrel on end with easy unconcern, all objections were immediately withdrawn. His surname was the levelling one of Smith, and his . Christian name— highly Christian — Hezekiah. His mother called ham "Zeke" and his companions "Breezy." Breezy entered upon his work whistling in supreme content. He was at the bottom of the commercial hill, and was preparing to run up to the top. He had', iro star-high ambitions to make him dream, no love affairs to jnake him forgetful, and! no vices to keep him from doing his best. There wasn't a lazy tendon m his body. He was not (all. If he had been, he would have been lazy. He was short, thin, black-eyed, nervous and muscular. Before his ponderous companions got an idea through their beads, Breezy was half-way done with the action. A few thought, he was a genius; but v they were mistaken. Breezy was innocent of the smallest spark. He just bad a heavy capital of nervous energy. that made him work while others were content to lounge. • They put him behind the fruit counter. His first act was to clean, it up and 1 "fix things " generally. " Such ai rum- way of doing business," be muttered, quite like an experienced grocer, seo-wiing at the hidden waste and slipshod displays of his predecetHoiv When he was through with the counter there was absolutely no fault to 'find 1 with it. But lie was mot satisfied:. He wont into the cellar and started to saw and nail some boxes to make receptacles for various things back of his cotttiter. , "What are- you doing here?" said.' the pompous and- obese superintendent, finding iam at work. j "Ob," said Breezy carelessly, "I'm just getting some boxes in. shape to put dirt and i tools 58b at my counter." "We have got a carpenter to do tfca£," said the superintendent, with displeasure; " get up where you belong and 'tend to your custotaers." . Brsesy went up, andl finished the boxes later while the superintendent was absetOffc. Me cleaned the fruit on his stand' four times • day. "It gets so blamed mussed up," he . said briskly to a fellow-clerk who looked askance at the action. , "The other clerk didn't," replied his companion suggestively. "Dida't he? 1 ' eaid Breezy coolly. Of course the clerks laughed at him. His tie was awry and of objectionable 'hue, and; Iris trousers Jacked the proper cut and orease. The fruit trade was slow, and Breezy was highly impatient. The superintendent com- ' pelled ham to stay behind his counter, and) be had to gaze impatiently over the bustling crowd of the store, which seemed to stop at ; evefy other counter but 'his. Twice, when the wfperintendent was not about, fae> made <jt personal canvass among the shoppers and Kcured a cumber of sales. The third time Mfc,, wks discovered and peremptorily osrdared After closing time, Breezy was absentmindedl and l restless. The noise of the over- }&&} cash system; the aroma of freshlyroasted coffee, of baconi, and of cheese ; the click of the weighing scales ; the scraping of the busy scoops ; the shrill staccato of the ffegister bells and opening drawers ; the rustle of the wrapping paper ; the shuffle of hurrying feet ; the incessant hram of voices, •ad the ever-changing panorama of shoppers — all these had become to Breezy the breath; of life, end he sighed for them longingly ere the evenings were ov«r. He had • printing press* and he set type as a means cf diversion— all matter concerning the gro--otrr store. He set up as card and embodied in it an! Ictoa, <Sh»fc he had conceived. He printed] 600. 0 f them— all the cardboard he had. They ware invitations to the public to ibave any and all sorts of frudt delivered at their homes at any time by telephone orders. He kid one on Mr Leslie's desk the nest ■HMTVJTTf, : "Thompson," Breezy heard Leslie call shortly afterwards to the superintendent, " this is a good! idea. How many did you hare printed?" . Thompson grew Ted. ".I didn't hovel any printed," lie replied ia surprise. Leslie frowned, and called his >partner, who also professed ignorance. Breezy watched them from behind the' register, and then) ventured forward*. 11 1 printed- them on my own) (press. Here) •re 500 more." Leslie looked again at the card, aadl them raised Ibis eyebrows at Thompson, who nodded in return, seemingly signifying that this was the olerk mentioned in some previous conversation. "You may hand in your bill for them to the book-keeper," said Leslie evenly ; "and, Thompson, you may have them properly distributed." He was paid for his cards, and there was also an extra dollar in his weekly pay enve- , lope that Saturday. Ha promptly bought the .best seat in the theatre. They found him the next week in the telephone booth, calling up successively from a list of over 100 residences. "Is this U£rs Jones?" he would ask. " Pardon me, ■Mrs Jones ; this is Leslie's. We would like to sell you some groceries." And then he would enter into a conversation for an order. The other people on the line wer& indignant, and the exchange told him that he was not the only lung on the line. But

in less than an ihour Breezy had hurry orders aggregating twenty dollars, and Leslie himself closed Thonr on's mouth of wrath at neglected customers by a word of commendation. The firm's telephone trade had never been worked up, and Breezy printedi announcements inviting customers to use the 'phone to send their orders. A 'phone was placed behind the fruit counter, and Breezy took the orders. He did more. " You're go-ing to bake, aren't you?" he asked of the housewives when they ordered flour, lard, etc. " Isn't your baking-powder all gone? Don't you need some new pans? We've got a splendid new pan here. Patented. Only eight cents, too." And "Here, Mr Thompson," lie callefi to the superintendent as he passed one day; " who makes these sign cards?" "Tommy, the shipping clerk," replied Thompson shortly. "I have just thought," said Breezy reflectively, " that I might make a nicer one for this' counter. May I try one?" "Yes; but don't neglect your counter." Breezy had just received a large quantity of "splendid figs that, morning, which were selling at a really attractive price. But the firm had not even given him price cards to put on theni, and had not mentioned them in the newspaper ads. " How in blazes do they expect to sell these?" he grumbled. "Nobody knows anything about them." When, therefore, he had surprised the busy shipping clerk by asking for the cardmafking tools, and had made a few simple price cards for other goods, it occurred to him that lie -might as 'well make a fig sign. It was prettily lettered, and it read: " These figs are good, clean figs, and you won't be able to buy them many days.'! The clerks leered at him when he put it over his figs,, rearranging the boxes artistically on the counter. Thompson didn't happen around any more that day, ibut in the evening Breezy sought him out. The figs were all gone! "H'm," said the superintendent, "you must have had an extra run on figs today." . : Orer the new supply that he received the next morning, the clerks read from another card : " More good, clean figs at this price. They'll only last through the day, though." It seemed as if everybody that came into the store that day bought figs. Thompson came to the fruit counter out of curiosity, attracted by the- crowd there, which Breezy was waiting upon with a satisfied and dexterous alacrity. He elevated his eyebrows at the sign. "Who made that sign?" he asked, when the crowd cleared eflv "Me," said Breezy, in a bustle at the cash register. " H'm, h'm," said the superintendent, strolling off. ■ The next day it was raisins at a bargain, and Breezy's sign said : "We bought fifty boxes of these seedless raisins, and we are going to •■3ell them, at cents a pound until they axe all gone." "How many boxes of those seedless raisins went cut to-day?" asked Thompson that evening, looking sourly at the sign. "I'm afraid they won't go very well." "Twenty-five, answered Breezy. "What!" said Thompson, staring over his spectacles. "Twenty-five," repeated Breezy. "H'm, h'm," said the superintendent, walking rapidly off. The other twenty-five went the next day. "Could have sold more," said Breezy. "H'm," said Thompson slowly ; and after a minute: "Those signs are neatly lettered." ; Breezy was vigorously cleaning) up. " You may take off the dull hours," continued Thompson cautiously, " and make the signs for the whole store. We'll get an assistant at your counter." Breezy was kicking some boxes under his counter. "D'ye" hear?" said Thompson. "Yes, sir," said Breezy. For the next six weeks the customers at Leslie's enjoyed daily treats from the signs. There were no less than fifty to be made on busy days. The language was simple ; it told the truth about the goods, and it never disappoint«d,and quite often there was a bit of humour in it. The obese superintendent frowned at Breezy's efforts and looked as .if he half regretted his venture. "The old guy," mused Breezy one day, as he saw Thompson deliberately tear one of them up. It was an egg sign, and read : "If you wait until to-morrow to buy these eggs at fifteen cents the dozen, they may not be as good as 'they are to-day !"■ Promptly Breezy had another one up which read : "It's throwing these eggs at you to sell them for fifteen cents a dozen. They're not bad, though.", Thompson stood before it for full two minutes before he decided to let it pass, and then walked away, murmuring, " H'm, h'm." But Breezy ran to extremes, and one day, when Leslie paused before a cheese sign and read, "Hold your nose here. It only takes the clerk two minutes by the clock to wrap up half v a pound l at thirty cents," he decided that he would draw the limit, and he told Breezy to take it down, which

Breezy did) with a rather crestfallen air. He had been particularly proud of thie effect, and had stood "behind his resigster a dozen different times during the day, to watch customers stare and break out ante* laughter. A week later they made him. take another one down, and Mr Leslie called him aside. " Don't try to be so funny on your cards," he frowned. "You make nice cards when you stick to fact, but when you get humorous you are as loud as a barrel of mackerel." Bre«zy grunted ungraoious acquiescence, ■while the corners of the grocer's mouth twitched at the recollection of some of the cards. But they continued to be as flagrant as ever. Thompson complained to Leslie about it, and the proprietor sat for ai few moments in d«ep thought. "That boy's got too much vitality," he said, " and we'll have to give him another outlet for it. Making cards and answering the telephone isn't enough for him to do. I believe that I will put Mqrris at the telephone, and let Smith do our important outside business down town." The change was accordingly made, amd Breezy became a sort of confidential clerk, doing most of the firm's business with the banks and the down-town, offices. Characteristically, he allowed no opportunity to escape to learn the firm's jftanner of doing business, and its needs. He was not chary with suggestions either, and 1 was told by the firm more than once that his advice had not been asked, and' that it was therefore not very valuable. This logic Breezy utterly failed to comprehend. His old friends smiled as he dashed' by them diaily on his bicycle, his hat crushed into his head and' his face almost on the handle bars. The firm sent him to the newspaper offices to take advertising copy. The advertisements which he carried he criticised 1 freely on the road down town. Most of his criticisms were of ai deoidedly adverse nature, and his opinion of the man who wrote them, the head of the firm, grew more and more contemptuous. He had learned some lessons in advertising by his card making. One morning they sent him to a downtown firm of producers with an order for twenty tubs of butter. ( With, the order they gave him copy to take to all the morning papers, making commonplace and altogether unattractive mention — thought Breezy — of a proposed special sale of these twenty tubs of butter. " That's the weakest thing yet," he soliloquised, as he sped down the empty avenue. "Butter'll go up three cents a pound one of these days." As he stood in the office of the company, he heard a man say something confidentially to the produce man and a customer that made him wink hard l . It was that butter would go up in a few days. The customer did not seem to take it very seriously, but Breezy construed it into a. mighty tip. ."Just what I thought," he said to himself. "That slow firm buying only twenty tubs!" It occurred to him that he might telephone to the firm and 1 give them, the tip ; but he immediately rejected the idea. " They'd) ,only laugh and tell me that I wasn't running their business." Then was born a great idea. An instant later he was decided. The producer whistled when Breezy handed him an order for a hundred tubs. "It'll take all we have," he said. Breezy, sat down at a desk and wrote something rapidly. The foreman at the newspaper composing rooms looked at him in surprise as he gave directions about border and type, technicalities which he had learned as editor of the school paper. The tubs were all delivered in the afternoon. Thompson caime out in the wareroom and looked at the first batch of twenty. "I wouldn't have ordered twenty !" he said, shaking his head. " I told Jim they wouldn't go." He wasn't in when the rest came. " Are they turning the store into a butter house?" said the shipping clerk, grumbling, as he helped the men bring them in. " Great heavens !" ejaculated Thompson the next morning when he came into tluwareroom. '■' Where does ail this butter come from?" The shipping clerk looked unintelligent, and made no answer. Thompson brought in the lead of the firm, Mr Leslie. He, in turn, stared dumbly at the tiers of tubs. "What the — — " he began excitedly. "I told you to order twenty, didn't I?". "You advised me not to buy more," srjc Thompson stiffly, " and I didn't." "Can't you count?" exclaimed Leslie wrathfully, pointing to the tubs. " There. «, hundred there, if there's one!" When Breezy was finally called in, In faced both men. easily.

"How many tubs of butter did you order?" asked Leslie. " One hundred." "I told you twenty!" roared Thompson. Leslie did not answer, but made for the telephone. Tie produce people firmly refused to iake back the tub 3. " We've just refilled our refrigerators, and' can't accommodate any morei" they said. But th«y added something more, in a telephone whisper. " Mr Leslie," said Breezy, when the proprietor rang off, without any visible allay - ment of his wrath, " I was ordered to get only twenty, but I made it a hundred, and— — " " You .did, didi you?" burst out Leslie, glaring at Breezy with ■unutterablft derision. "You'll be advertising yourself as proprietor of this store Shortly, won't you?" "But, Mr Leslie," protested: Breezy, " butter's going up in a few days !" "Great guns!" roared Leslie, "are — are you running this firm, you — you impudent young. * ool? You young barrel of gall! I've a potion to break your head !" Breezy flushed angrily. "Go out and draw your salary, and never set foot here again !" Breeey turned on his hoel and walked out, without looking at the clerks who had assembled! at the wareroom door^, attracted by tihe loud: voices. "Fools! fools!" he muttered between his teeth, as he drove his bicycle along the street. When he looked' at copies of all the morning papers, in which appeared 1 the advertisement he had: prepared the day l>efore, in lieu of the originals, he smiled in genuine gratification. * "If that don't sell butter^" ihe chuckled, "nothing ever will." The advertisement predicted that butter would go up very soon, andl that Leslie and Co. had bought, in anticipation of this, 100 tubs, which they would; sell at one cent below the market pride. "There will be a- stall .awfuller row in that shanty when they see these. They might arrest me." But the spirit of Breezy rose hopefully to the possibility. "If they only wait till to-night." He learnt afterwards that the store was crowded wiWi butter buyers from early morning until late in the afternoon, and that his advertisements had precipitated the coming rise in price, and ah advance of one cent was already asked that same day. It was "during the afternoon of the next day that Breezy received a note asking him to call at the office of the grocery firm of Leslie and 1 Co. "See here, young man," said Leslie to him in his private office, "what you did on Tuesday was a thing that could ihave put you behind prison bars. Do you understand.?" Privately, Breefcy was sceptical, but he nodded doggedly, thinking that Leslie merely wished to abuse him, and regretting that he had^come at all. "It was pure malicious mischief in the eyes of the law," continued Leslie, "and an entirely unpardonable offence. But while this is undoubtedly so" — he talked more moderately and less harshly — "jit — well, to be frank, those ads—" The 5 remembrance of this part of Breezy's misdemeanour swelled his indignation, and he was again angry. " Those ads," he continued,, "that you ditched for vs — well, it was worth six months at hard confinement itself!" He glared impotently, -while he got red in the fAce. "Well," he ibegan again, "as I was «aying, those ads — cr — well, they drew the trade, in. brief, and we sold 1 the whole hundred tubs!" He said this as though it was little short of miraculous. Breezy did not wink an eye. To him it was the natural result. As Breezy still held his peace, Leslie resumed : "A 9 a result we are — er— have cleared, well, some hundred dollars." Breezy still remained silent, and Leslie put on a pompous frown. ; "Understand, young man," he declaimed, "in giving you the position of superintendent and advertising manager of this store, we most certainly wish to express our vehement displeasure at your act of Tuesday, lucky as it, happened to turn out, and solemnly warn ; you that a repetition of such a monstrous offence will mean instant discharge. To hold this position you will have to confine yourself to reasonable and cautdous methods of doing business. Your salary will be three times your former one. Get out now, and don't bother me, but show up ready for work Monday morning." The only evidence Breezy gave of his satisfaction with this interview was that he rode madly up the full length of the steepest hill in the city on his way home, to rid himself of surplus nervous energy.