te put
upon his own note by that seller. He knows what his note will sell for
in the street. He knows to a feather's weight the influence of each of
these items upon the mind of the seller of whom he wishes to make a
purchase. Talk about diplomacy!--there's not a man in any court in
Europe who knows his position, his fulcrum, and his lever, and the use
he can make of them, as this man knows. He can unravel any combination,
penetrate any disguise, surmount any obstacle. Beyond all other men, he
knows when to talk, and when to refrain from talking,--how to throw the
burden of negotiation on the seller,--how to get the goods he wants
at his own price, not at _his_ asking, but on _the suggestion of the
seller_, prompted by his own politely obvious unwillingness to have the
seller part with his merchandise at any price not entirely acceptable to
himself.

The incompetent man, on the other hand, is presuming, exacting, and
unfeeling. He not only desires, but asserts the desire, in the
very teeth of the seller, to have something which that seller has
predetermined that he shall not have. He fights a losing game from the
start. He will probably begin by depreciating the goods which he knows,
or should know, that the seller has reason to hold in high esteem. He
will be likely enough to compare them to some other goods which he knows
to be inferior. He will thus arouse a feeling of dislike, if not of
anger, where his interest should teach him to conciliate and soothe; and
if he sometimes carry his point, his very victory is in effect a defeat,
since it procures him an increased antipathy. This the judicious
buyer never does. He repudiates, as a mere half-truth, and a relic of
barbarism, the maxim, "There is no friendship in trade."

"But," you are asking, "do only those succeed who are born to these
extraordinary endowments? And those who do succeed, are they, in
fact, each and all of them, such wonderfully capable men as you have
described?"

If by success you mean mere money-making, it is not to be denied that
some men do that by an instinct, little, if at all, superior to that of
the dog who smells out a bone. There are exceptions to all rules; and
there are chances in all games, even in games of skill. Lord Timothy
Dexter, as he is facetiously called, shipped warming-pans to the West
Indies, in defiance of all geographical objections to the venture, and
made money by the shipment,--not because warming-pans were wanted ther