told the truth or not. Now you are both
on excellent terms. He thinks you are a very decent young fellow.

BRING ON YOUR "LEADERS."

You ought to have some little line that you are selling for less than it
is worth. Give him the solemn privilege of getting some of it. He
wavers, he is lost. This is the entering wedge. If he is sharp enough to
buy only "leaders," he is too sharp for you, and for your house. Ten
chances to one he would never pay anyway. You must have picked out a
poor man to start on. But if you have an ordinary gentlemanly man of
business, he will take some goods of you. Canvass him for everything. Do
not neglect your work now it has come. He is wavering everywhere. He is
contradicting by his acts nearly every assertion he made behind his
entrenchments. Never mind that. Do not leave him until there is "no
more buy in him." Now, after you have all the items--and

NEVER STOP HIM

when he is giving them--sum them up, read them over, take his name (firm
name), his post-office (not his railroad station), his railroad station,
his express company, his railroad, absolutely everything. Make his name
"Owens," not "Owen," "Ransom's Sons" not Ransom & Sons, "Smythe" not
"Smith," if that be the way he puts it. A man is very tender about his
name. Never forget that. Impress those things on your shipping-clerk at
home. Tell him you have sold Edwards Pierrepont a bill of goods, and
that this particular buyer has

A PRIVATE GRAVEYARD

for shipping-clerks who mark it "Edward." You have already consulted
your commercial "testament" to see if the firm will pay. If the bill be
too large for the credit allowed in the "testament," telegraph to your
firm about it and get instructions. Of course, you cannot have mistaken
prices or sold below the necessary profit. A firm in Boston started out
a confident young man, and he sold tremendous bills of goods. He took
no account of the value of the goods, freight, or time of payment. All
those merchants who had friends on his "beat" telegraphed to them to be
sure and give him an order. He was the rage. There was also some rage at
Boston when the orders began coming in. They telegraphed to Madison

TO HEAD HIM OFF,

but he had "taken a shoot" to Rockford. They telegraphed to Dubuque, but
he had doubled down toward Galesburg. They telegraphed to Galesburg but
he had escaped into Iowa. Finally they sent, to every town on three
parallel lines of railroad in Iowa, a postal