Canceled Orders

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Title:     Canceled Orders
Author: Charles N. Crewdson [More Titles by Crewdson]

"Do I like cancellations? Well, I guess not!" said a furnishing goods friend, straightening up a little and lighting his cigar as a group of us sat around the radiator after supper one night in the Hoffman House. "I'll tell you, boys, I'd rather keep company with a hobo, than with a merchant who will place an order and then cancel it without just cause. I can stand it all right if I call on a man for a quarter of a century and don't sell him a sou, but when I once make a sale, I want it to stick. This selling business isn't such a snap as most of our employers think. It takes a whole lot of hard knocking; the easy push-over days are all over. When a man lands a good order now it makes the blood rush all over his veins; and when an order it cut out it is like getting separated from a wisdom tooth. Of course you can't blame a Kansas merchant for going back on his orders in a grasshopper year; but it is the fellow who has half a notion of canceling when he buys and afterwards really does cancel, that I carry a club for.

"Usually a fellow who does this sort of funny work comes to grief. I know I once had the satisfaction of playing even with a smart buyer who canceled on me.

"I was down in California. I was put onto a fellow named Johnson up in Humboldt County, who wanted some plunder in my line--the boys, you know, are pretty good to each other in tipping a good chance off to one another. I couldn't very well run up to the place--it was a two- day town--so I wrote Johnson to meet me at 'Frisco at my expense. He came down, bought his bill all right, and I paid him his expense. Luckily, I put a clothing man on and we 'divied' the expense. We treated that fellow white as chalk; we gave him a good time--took him to the show and put before him a good spread.

"Do you know that fellow just simply worked us. He wanted to come to 'Frisco, anyhow, and just thought he'd let me foot the bill. How do I know it? Because he wrote the house canceling the order before he started back home. I figured up how long it would take to get a letter to Chicago and back; and he couldn't have gone home and written the firm so that I could get the notification as soon as I did unless he wrote the cancellation the very night we took him to the theater. I never had a man do me such dirt. I felt like I'd love to give him just one more swell dinner, and use a stomach pump on him.

"But didn't I get beautifully even with Brother Johnson!

"The next season, as a drawing card, I had my packer carry on the side, in his name, a greatly advertised line of shoes. It didn't pay a long commission, but everybody wanted it; and it enabled me to get people into my big towns so that I did not have to beat the brush.

"I had failed to scratch Johnson from my mailing list, so he got a card from my packer--as well as a letter from myself--that if he would meet him in San Francisco his expenses would be paid. He did not know that my packer and myself were really the same man.

"Johnson jumped at the advertised shoe line like a rainbow trout at a 'royal coachman.' It's funny how some merchants get daffy over a little printer's ink, but it does the work and the man who advertises his goods is the boy who gets the fat envelopes. I'd rather go on the road to-day with a line of shoes made out of soft blotting paper, if they had good things said about them in the magazines and if flaming posters went with them than to try to dish out oak-tanned soles with prime calf uppers at half price and with a good line of palaver. It's the lad who sticks type that, when you get right down to it, does the biz.

"The letter which Johnson wrote in reply to the card of my packer went something like this: "'My dear sir: In regard to your favor of the 23d inst., I beg to say that I could use about $2000 worth of your line if you could come up here, providing that I would be the only one that you would sell your line to in my town.

"'Hoping to hear from you soon in regard to this matter, I remain, very truly, -------- Johnson.'

"'P.S. If you can't possibly come up, I'll come down.'

"What did I do? Well, I thought the matter over and decided that business was business and, there being no other chance in his town, I would let him come and try to play even on the old score. I wired him to come down, and I thought, as I had him on the run, I'd better put on a pusher. My message read: 'Come down but you must be here to- morrow.'

"Just after my telegram was off--I told the girl to rush it--I called at the office for my mail and, bless me! I had a letter from another man in the same town.

"Now, say what you will, boys, a man's letter reveals his character. If a man has mean blood in his veins he will spread some of it on the paper when he writes to you. I've seen the pugnacious wrinkles of a bull pup's face many a time wiggling between the lines of a letter. And if there's sunshine in a man's heart that also will brighten up the sheet he writes on.

"The other man in the town wrote about like this:

"'Your postal received and I must say I regret exceedingly that I have just sent in a mail order for your goods. I wish I had known that you were coming, for I always save my orders for the boys on the road when I can. Now, the next time you come to 'Frisco, let me know a few days ahead and I will run down to meet you. I want your goods. My business in your line is steadily increasing. When I started in I just kept them for a side line, but your goods give first class satisfaction, and in the near future I shall handle nothing else. It will take a little time to clean out the other makes, but when I do--by next season--I shall have a nice order for you. I hope to hear from you before you get to the next coast--say a month before. Truly yours,

"They say a 'bird in the hand's worth two in the bush,' but that depends upon the kind of a bird you've got hold of. I'll let go of a tough old owl every time to take a chance at catching a spring chicken. Without a second thought, I decided that I'd risk it on the man who wrote me such a gentlemanly letter rather than deal with the fellow who had canceled on me. Furthermore, I had half an idea that Johnson was making me fair promises only to get the line and cut the other fellow's throat and that maybe he would cancel again. So I immediately sent Johnson a second telegram:

"'Cannot place the line with you. Do not come down.'

"He was anxious for the line and he wired back:

"'Write particulars why you cannot sell me your shoes.'

"Well, wasn't this a chance? My clothing friend was with me again. I told him the story. 'Soak him good and wet!' said he. Together we wrote the following letter, and, you bet your sweet life, I mailed it, signing my packer's name:

"'Sir: You wire me to write you "particulars why" I cannot sell you my line of shoes. Two of my friends at present in the hotel inform me that six months ago you met them here at their expense, were royally entertained by them and that after buying bills of them you almost immediately cancelled your orders, and that you have never offered to return to them the $25.00 they spent for your traveling expenses. These gentlemen are reputable; and, to answer your question specifically and plainly, I do not care to place my line with you because in you I have no confidence, sir.'"

"That was getting even with a vengeance," spoke up the furnishing goods man. "In this canceling business, though, sometimes the merchant has just cause for it. I know I once had a case where my customer did exactly the right thing by canceling his order.

"Along the last part of October, I sold him a of ties--this was down in Mississippi. I sent in a little express order for immediate shipment, and for December first a freight shipment which my man wished for the Christmas trade. I also took his spring order to be sent out February first.

"Now, my man's credit was good. For several seasons he had been discounting his bills. He had the personal acquaintance of our credit man and had made a good impression on him. I always like to have my customers acquainted with our credit man. It's a good thing always for the merchant to do and it's also a good thing for the house to know their trade personally. Makes the man out in the country feel that he's not doing business with strangers.

"There was no reason, then, why there should have been any question in the credit department about making the shipment. The little express order went out all right but, by mistake, the credit man placed the February first shipment and the December first order away in the February first shipment file. This was a clear mistake--no excuse for it. Business men should not make mistakes.

"The first I heard about the matter was about New Year. I was struck dumb when I received notice from the Credit Department that my man had canceled his entire order. The credit man told me in the letter which he sent along with the cancellation notice that he had simply made a mistake in filing the December first order away with the February first shipment, and confessed that he had made a mistake and begged my pardon.

"He was a gentleman with three times as much work on his hands as the firm had the right to expect from him for the money they paid him, so, although I was much put out because of the cancellation, I really did not have any resentment toward the credit man. If things move along smoothly in a wholesale house, the man in the office and the salesman on the road must pull in double harness. I couldn't quite agree with my friend in the office, though, when he said that my customer, when he failed to receive an invoice soon after the first of December, should have written in and said so. That wasn't the customer's business. It was the business of the house, if they were unable to make the shipment December 1st, to write the man and tell him so.

"Well, there I was! A good day's work had gone to the bad. My order-- and it was a good healthy one, too--was canceled and perhaps all future business with a good friend and solid customer was at an end.

"The house had written my friend--his name was Morris--asking him to reinstate the order; but that was like putting bait before a fish at spawning time. He wouldn't take the hook. I knew if there was any reinstating to be had, I must get it.

"Now, Morris was a bully good friend of mine. I really liked him very much, and he liked me. I remember well the first time that I ever struck him. Really, I went around to see him just for a personal call. 'Look here, old fellow,' I said, 'I haven't come around to do any business with you; but one of my old friends, Jack Persey, has told me what a good fellow you are and I've just dropped in to say hello. Come, let's have a cigar.'

"After we'd lighted our cigars and talked a little, I said, 'Well, I'm sorry to get off in such a rush but I must quit you. I must be packing up. My train leaves in about an hour and a half. Now, really Morris (he was such a whole-souled fellow that I found myself, without any undue familiarity, calling him by his first name, after a very few minutes), I don't want to do any business with you. I don't wish to impose my acquaintance on you, but come on over to my sample room and keep me company while I'm packing.'

"I really didn't intend to do any business with him. Some of the very best friends we all have on the road, anyhow, are those to whom we never sell a sou. Morris saw very plainly that I wasn't trying to work him--you can always pick out, anyway, the ring of truth in words you hear. I started to pack up without showing an item or even talking business. My line was displayed, however, and it was really a bird. Morris himself picked up a few samples and threw them down on the table.

"'Say, dos are pretty ennyvay. Sent me a dotzen of each von of dese in the color dey are dere, ant also in black. I vill just gif you a leetle gomplimentary orter on account of Chack. There is no reeson anyvay vy I shouldn't do beesness mit you. You're de first man on de rote dot efer struck me and didn't ask me to buy goots. I don't like the fellow, anyvay, dot I'm buying ties from and his house is not'ing to me. I vill gif you a goot orter next season.' And, sure enough, Morris did give me a good order next season, and for several seasons after that.

"So you can see how I was put out when I got a letter telling me that Morris had canceled the order. I really cared less about the amount of the order than I did about losing his friendship. So I sat down and dictated a letter to him that ran something like this:

"'Dear Morris:

"'"The wordly hope men set their hearts upon
Turns ashes--or it prospers--and anon,
Like snow upon the desert's dusty face,
Lighting a little hour or two, is gone."

"'Our business relationship, Morris, has always been so pleasant that many a time I've hoped it would last always. I cannot forget the kind- hearted and friendly way in which you gave me your first order. I had hoped that the firm I was with would give you the good treatment which your friendship for me deserved; but here they are making a mistake with the very man who, last of all, I would have them offend.

"'Now, Morris, I want you to feel that this is not my fault. I am sure it is not yours. It can be nobody's fault but that of the house. They, like myself, are also really very sorry for this mistake.

"'I enclose you the letter which I received from them in regard to this. Can you not see that they regret this sincerely? Can you not even hear the wail that our office man must have uttered when he dictated the letter? Now, Morris, I really know that my firm holds you in high esteem--and why should they not? You have always patronized them liberally. You have always paid your bills and you have never made yourself ugly toward them in any way.

"'As I say, there is no excuse for this mistake but, if you are willing to pass that all up, Morris, I am sure you would make our credit man, who has made this error, very happy indeed if you would merely wire the house, "Ship my goods as originally ordered."

"'And, after all, Morris, think this thing over and maybe you will conclude that "'Tis better far to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of."

"'"Can't be always sunny
Dat's de lesson plain;
For ever' rose, my honey,
Am sweeter fer de rain."
"'Your friend,
"'------------'"

"A good deal of poetry for a business letter," spoke up one of the boys. This pricked the necktie man, who flashed back, "Yes, but if there were more poetry in business, it would be lots more pleasant than it is."

"Well, how did it come out?" I asked.

"It so happened that I had to pass through Morris' town about ten days afterwards. I didn't care anything about reinstating the order for the amount of it, but I really did wish to go in and see my old friend and at least square myself. So I dropped off one day between trains at Morris' town, and went up to see him.

"'Hello,' said he, 'How are you, old man? I'm glad to see you. Say, but dot vas a tandy letter. I've ortered a seventy-five-cent vrame for it.'

"'Well, Morris,' said I, 'you know I'm really very glad that a little difficulty of this kind has come up between us as I like you to know just where I stand. Now, I haven't come here to do anything but just see you. Cut the order clear out--I wish you would. It would teach the house a lesson and make them more careful hereafter. Come on down with me now. It's about supper time and we're going to have a little feed.'

"I really meant every word I said. After we had finished a fried chicken or two, we started back to Morris' store.

"'Say,' said he, 'Haf you got the copy of dot orter I gafe you?'

"I said, 'Why no, Morris, I haven't a copy of it. You have one. Don't you remember that I gave you one?'

"'Yes, but ven I didn't get my goots on time--I kapt vaiting, und vaiting, und vaiting, und still dey ditn't com, I took dot copy and I vas so mad dot I tore it op and trew id in der stofe.'

"'Well, if you wish to look over the copy, Morris, I can easily run down to the depot and tear my tissue paper one out of my order book.'

"'Vell, you go down und get it,' said Morris. 'Dere's some off the Gristmas goots it is too late for me to use, but we'll fix op de Spring shipment som vay.'

"When Morris and I looked over my copy, he cut out a few items of the December 1st shipment but added to the February 1st order a great deal more than he canceled from the other one.

"'Say,' said Morris, 'do you know vy I reinsdadet dot orter. It vas dot letter you sent me.'

"'Well, I thank you very much,' said I.

"'You know, I don't care so much aboud dose "vorldly hopes" and dot "sonshine," but vat dit strike me vas vere you saidt: "It's better fair to bear de ilts ve half don vly to odders dot we know not of." Dot means, Vat's de use of chanching 'ouses.'"

"You can handle some men like that," said a hat man friend who sat with us, but I struck one old bluffer out in South Dakota once that wouldn't stand for any smoothing over. He was the most disagreeable white man to do business with I ever saw. He was all right to talk fishing and politics with, and was a good entertainer. He always treated me decently in that way but when it got down to business he was the meanest son of a gun on earth. A fishing trip for half an hour or the political situation during luncheon is a pretty good thing to talk over, but when it comes to interfering with business, I think it is about time to cut it out.

"My house had been selling this man for several years. He handled a whole lot of goods but it worried the life out of me to get his bill.

"Last time I did business with him he had monkeyed with me all day long, and I had struck him as many as four times to go over to my sample room. If he had made a positive engagement and said that he would see me at twelve o'clock that night, it would have been all right; but he would turn away with a grunt the subject of going to look at samples, not even giving me the satisfaction of saying he didn't want anything at all.

"I felt that I'd spent time enough in the town so, after supper, I brought over a bunch of soft hats under my arm, and about nine o'clock he looked at them, picked out a few numbers, and said he had to go to lodge. I boned him about straw hats--I was on my spring trip then.

"'Look at them to-morrow,' he grunted.

"I was beginning to get tired of this sort of thing so next morning early I went around to see another man in the town. I'd made up my mind I'd rather take less business from some one else and get it more agreeably; but, to my surprise, I sold this other fellow $1,300, the best order I took on that trip. And easy! I believe he was one of the easiest men I ever did business with; and his credit was A1. He had no objections whatever to my doing business with others in the same town, because he wished his goods put up under his own name rather than with our brands on them, so this really made no interference.

"I finished with him in the morning about 11:30. On going over to my other man's store I found that he was still in bed. Pretty soon he came in with his before-breakfast grouch. It was afternoon before I got him over to my sample room. Meantime I had gone to sell another man and sold him a bunch of children's and misses' goods--such stuff as a clothing house has no use for.

"After I'd taken the dogging of the gruff old codger for a couple of hours--he kicked on everything, the brims being a quarter of an inch too wide or too narrow, and the crowns not shaped exactly right--I finally closed the order and handed him his copy. As he put his hand on the door-knob to go, he cast his eye over a pile of misses' sailors and growled: 'Well, who bought them?'

"I told him that I'd sold a little handful of goods to a dry goods store, knowing there would be no interference as he didn't carry that line of goods.

"'Well, a man that sells me can't do business with no other man in this town,' he grunted, and with this, slammed the door and left me. He didn't know that I'd sold his competitor a $1,300 bill.

"When I was about half through packing up, the old growler's clerk, who was a gentlemanly young fellow, came in and said to me, hesitatingly: 'Old man, I hate to tell you, but the boss told me to come over and say to you not to ship that bill of goods he gave you until he ordered it. He is very unreasonable, you know, and is kicking because you sold some stuff to the dry goods man down the street.'

"'Thank you, Gus,' said I to the clerk. I was mad as fire, but not at him, of course. 'Now, Gus, the old man has sent me a message by you. I'll let you take one back to him. Now, mind you, you and I are good friends, Gus. Tell him I say he can take his business, including this order, and go with it now and forever clean smack back to--well, you know the rest. Then tell him, Gus, that I've sold not only this dry goods man a bill but also his strongest competitor over $1,300 worth of goods. Tell him, furthermore, that I personally appreciate all the favors he has done for me in the past, in a personal way; that I have enjoyed visiting with him; that whenever I come back to this town again in the future, I shall come in to see him; that if I can do him a personal favor in any way, at any time, anywhere, I shall be only too glad to do so, but that, absolutely, our business relationship is at an end.'

"'All right,' said Gus. 'I'll repeat to the old man every word you've said. I'm glad you've called him down. It'll do him good.'

"And you bet your life I tore his order up without sending it in to the house and drew a line through his name on my book, and have never solicited his business since."

"You did him just exactly right," said the necktie man. "While I squared myself with my friend Morris, I was once independent with a customer who cancelled an order on me. He came in to meet me at Kansas City. Two more of the boys were also there then. He placed orders with all of us. His name was Stone. The truth is he came in and brought his wife and boy with him just because he wanted to take a little flyer at our expense. We had written him telling him that we'd pay his expenses if he would come in. He went ahead and took a few hours of our time to place his orders. At the time he did so I merely thought him a good liberal buyer but, as I now look back at the way he bought, he slipped down most too easy to stick.

"Sure enough, in three or four weeks the firm wrote me that Stone had cancelled his order, stating that he believed he had enough goods on hand to run him, that season, but that possibly very late he might reinstate the order.

"The fellow was good so I thought it wouldn't do very much harm to try to get him to take the goods. However, I employed very different tactics from those I used with my friend Morris. I wrote him this way:

"'My dear Brother Stone: I have received a letter from the firm stating that you have cancelled the order which you placed with me in Kansas City. You know not how much I thank you for cancelling this order. It gave me a great deal of pleasure to sell you this bill of goods, and now that you have cancelled it, I want you to be sure and make your cancellation stick because then, sooner than I had really expected, I shall have that same old pleasure over again.

"'It isn't always profit that a man should look for in business. What good does it do him to make a whole lot of money unless he can feel good on the inside? The feel is about all there is in life anyway.

"'Now in future, you go right on as you have in the past, buy your goods from the other fellow. He will not charge you a great deal more for them than I would and your loss will not be very great in that regard; but each time that I come around be sure to take a lot of my time and place an order with me, even if you do cancel it.

"'Don't even trouble yourself about returning the fifteen dollars expense money that was given you, because the pleasure I had with you was worth that much to me alone. I shall square this matter myself with the other boys. No, I won't do that because I'm sure that they feel in this matter just as I do.

"'With very kindest regards, and ever at your service, believe me, Brother Stone,

"'Truly yours,
"'------------'"

"He wired the house to ship the bill and sent the message paid."

"That was what I call a grafter," said one of the boys.

"Yes, you bet your life," said the wall paper man.

"I myself once cured a man of the cancelling habit. You know there are some merchants over the country who are afflicted with this disease.

"I had heard of a druggist out in Pennsylvania who was noted for placing an order one morning and cancelling it that very night. He had done a trick of this kind on me once and I'd made up my mind that I was going to play even with him. I walked him over to my sample room early in the morning. I had my samples all spread out so that I could handle him quickly. There were a lot of new patterns out that season-- flaming reds, greens, cherry colors, blues, ocean greens--all sorts of shades and designs.

"The druggist picked out a cracking good order. He took a copy of it himself in his own book. As we were working the wind turned the sheets of his memo. book and I saw that he had in it a copy of an order in my line to another firm. This he had given only a few days before. Every season this druggist would really buy one big bill of wall paper, but this was his trick: He would look at the line of every man that came along. Sometimes he would place six or eight orders a season. After placing an order he would immediately cancel it. At his leisure he would figure out which order pleased him best and reinstate that one.

"Well, sir, when I finished with him it was close onto luncheon time, but I didn't do anything but go hungry for awhile. I took my notebook, made out his order, as quickly as I could, wired it into the firm (it cost me twelve dollars to do this), and told them to be absolutely sure to put all hands to work on that order and ship it on the four o'clock fast freight that very day. I had to be in town the next day. Soon after breakfast I went into the druggist's store. I caught him back at his desk. I saw him blot the ink on an envelope he had just addressed. About this time a lady came in to get a prescription filled. As the druggist turned his back I quickly lifted the blotter and, seeing that the letter was addressed to my firm, let it cover the envelope again. I knew this was a cancellation letter.

"After the lady had gone out with her medicine, I asked the druggist to show me some hair brushes which were in the case at the other end of the store from the desk. I made up my mind that it was going to take me longer to buy that hairbrush than it did the old man to buy my bill of wall paper. I was getting his time. But I didn't rub my fingers over many bristles before up backed a dray loaded to the guards with the goods from my firm. The drayman came in and handed the druggist the bill of lading.

"'What's this?' said he.

"'I'm treed,' said the drayman. 'They're as heavy as lead.'

"With this the drayman rolled the cases into the druggist's store. Well, sir, he was the cheapest looking fellow you ever saw, but he kept the goods, all right, and this cured him of cancelitis."

[The end]
Charles N. Crewdson's short story: Canceled Orders

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