The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1905-05-31
A POLITE SALESMAN.
Hon" He Struck It Rich With a Shabby
Looking Customer.

How He Struck II Rich With a Shabby
Looking Customer.
"A friend of the late Charles Lock
hart, Standard Oil magnate, relating
some of the deceased millionaire's
eccentricities, told the following
story:
Something happened to him in
New York which would make plot
for Sunday school book if the
aame plot hadn't happened too
often in Sunday school books that it
Is getting trite.
There was new silver~are and
Jewelry establishment struggling
along in New York. Not a small
shop, you understand, but big
concern which was not yet recog-
nized as leader in fashionable
trade. One very hot summer after
noon tall, sad and rather i'll dress
ed old man entered the shop and
said he wanted to buy a wedding
present.
Now, it was a hot day, the clerks
were tired and irritated, and the
stranger looked like a visitor from
the remote farming district with
about $1.49 to spend. He passed
from counter to counter pricing
things.
The clerks were not at all cordial.
At last, down at the end Of the sill
verware department., he bumped
into young fellow, new man in
the shop. This clerk was trying to
make good; also, to do the situation
justice, he hadn't been there long
enough to know the difference be-
tween promising customer and an
unpromising one.
The old man went higher and
higher in his examination of silver
ware. He got to pricing full sets
of silver plate. After the young
clerk had run through the list he
said:
E'Is that the best you've got?"
The young clerk remembered then
that the firm had begun the manu-
facture of specially designed, ex-
ira heavy set of plate for a rich
New York family. The order had
been Cancelled, but some of the
pieces had been finished for show.
He trotted out that set.
The old man figured out OF the
back of an envelope every frill
which could be added to set of sill
yer plate, showed his list at the
clerk and asked how much it would
cost. The clerk consulted the man
ager and answered that it would be
fifty thousand and some odd dollars
and cents.
Gall right, have it made for me, -"
said the old man.
GLOW much do you want to de-
posit ?" asked the clerk.
"Oh," said the customer, "I'll pay
the whole thing and get it off my
mind" So he drew check for the
amount.
The clerk didn't recognize the sig
nature-he'd never heard of Charles
Lockhart-so he took it to the man
ager and asked if the latter thought
it was good.
"Good for a thousand times 50,-
000,," said the manager.
Lockhart came back to that store
in the Christmas season that year.
The clerks knew him that time, for
the $4,000 purchase had become u
tradition of the store. He went
past them all, though, and asked for
the clerk who had sold him the sill
yer plate. When he found his man,
Lockhart bought $4,000 worth of
Christmas. presents.
This story ends the way it ought
to end for the Sunday school library.
The clerk with an $4,000 year
customer on his string attracted the
attention of the firm, and now he's
a big man in the silverware business.
Il Sounds like chapter from
e"T Thrift" !" by Samuel Smiles, doesn't
it keystone. '...i
N&E The 3otore Vicious. -,