llow who keeps on pretending
to believe that he's paying for pork and getting dog is pretty apt to
get dog in the end.

But all that aside, I want you to get it firmly fixed in your mind right
at the start that this trip is only an experiment, and that I am not at
all sure you were cut out by the Lord to be a drummer. But you can
figure on one thing--that you will never become the pride of the pond by
starting out to cut figure eights before you are firm on your skates.

A real salesman is one-part talk and nine-parts judgment; and he uses
the nine-parts of judgment to tell when to use the one-part of talk.
Goods ain't sold under Marquess of Queensberry rules any more, and
you'll find that knowing how many rounds the Old 'Un can last against
the Boiler-Maker won't really help you to load up the junior partner
with our Corn-fed brand hams.

A good many salesmen have an idea that buyers are only interested in
baseball, and funny stories, and Tom Lipton, and that business is a side
line with them; but as a matter of fact mighty few men work up to the
position of buyer through giving up their office hours to listening to
anecdotes. I never saw one that liked a drummer's jokes more than an
eighth of a cent a pound on a tierce of lard. What the house really
sends you out for is orders.

Of course, you want to be nice and mellow with the trade, but always
remember that mellowness carried too far becomes rottenness. You can buy
some fellows with a cheap cigar and some with a cheap compliment, and
there's no objection to giving a man what he likes, though I never knew
smoking to do anything good except a ham, or flattery to help any one
except to make a fool of himself.

Real buyers ain't interested in much besides your goods and your prices.
Never run down your competitor's brand to them, and never let them run
down yours. Don't get on your knees for business, but don't hold your
nose so high in the air that an order can travel under it without your
seeing it. You'll meet a good many people on the road that you won't
like, but the house needs their business.

Some fellows will tell you that we play the hose on our dry salt meat
before we ship it, and that it shrinks in transit like a Baxter Street
Jew's all-wool suits in a rainstorm; that they wonder how we manage to
pack solid gristle in two-pound cans without leaving a little meat
hanging to it; and that the last car of lard was so strong that it came
back of its own a