Norwich bulletin., 1911-08-26
THE CUSTOMER IN VARIOUS ASPECTS


(written Specially for the Bulletin.5
This is great world, with a whole
lot of people in it. A whole lot of
no three in the same class. good
many of the lots ara JOB LOTS too.
Some who think themselves all-wool
and yard-wide are really compound
ed of equal proportions of shoddy,
cotton, fiocks and clay, being really
about twenty-five and one-third inches
wzde,-when stretched.
used to wonder at and dsapproVe
THE somewhat bored and cynical atti-
tude of good many clerks and sal IS
men when l dashed at them with some
within that l wanted attended to at
once. Surely they must see how very
simple and wholly reasonable my de-
dmands were. l couldn't see why they
shouldn't take fire at my sputteriuS
spark and be eager to drag the whole
stock down to hunt out exactly the
kind that desired. Why, 1t seemed to
me as If everybody on earth must
certainly want just that very thing.
| have found myself inwardly con-
demning the stupidity" of sales
men who couldn't see in a minute the
twisted and involved corroborea of a
crochet which had incuhated itself in
some dim corner of my brain.
!shoes, you rather expect the clerk To
know just to a millimetre where yoCr
wickedest corn is and bring YOU shoe
that won't even touch it. Now, don't
you? Likewise every other intending
purchaser expects that same clerk to
know all the details of his or her corn
crop. And We're pretty sharp and Sc
we're on him. aren't we? If he brings
on a second or third pair that fail
to have bullying annex built out ~
the side where that bunch is CROWNS.
Every one of US is,-to himself or
herseh,-the consciously all-imp0rtars
center of the universe. OF course We
admit, as a theory, the equal rights of
other folks. Practically and as a cold
their existence, whenever they fail to
see with our eyes and smell with
our noses and taste with our palates
and hear with our ears. Orthodoxy
in my doxy; heterdoxy is another
mans doxy" said Bishop Warburton.
Like the famous Seotchman of the
story. each one of us is convinced of
his own orthodoxy, but dourly doubt
full of everybody else's. Even in so
small a matter as that of our personal
likes and dislikes each one of us is
always "it'. and all others are either
cranky or pigheaded" or "unreason-
able. What we like is good: what
we don't like is 'horrid". 1t makes no
difference If l am the only man in a
whole township who likes caviars:
necessarily eaviare is and must be de-.
licious. and those who don't want it.
won't touch it, revolt at it and are
nauseated by 1T are simply contrary
and fanciful.
"A mighty good place to study hu-
man nature is a peddler's wagon; said
one of that vocation to me, once, 1t
o1x- is.
a poor opinion of human nature. Even
we peddlers of truck. we dispensers of
garden sass. see a good many queer
manifestations of that strange mis-
cellany and patchwork. I've sometimes
thought that a real diary of real
as much of a novelty as Judge Shute's
Real Diary of Real Boy" was. But
] don't believe any of us would dare
80 write it. absolutely incorporated.
Even if one should. and could find a
publisher courageous enough to put
his imprint on it, wise insurance
company would promptly cancel its
policy on his life But thera are soma
phases of it which may bear telling,
IL one is only careful to suppress
names. And Tn gradually getting. 50
calloused to the critisms and so i'm
mune to the soft soap. that I'm be-
ginning to be able to take the thing
philosophically and extract some fun
out of it. I'm going to share a little
of my last fortnisht's amusement with
YOU
As many of you who are saI farm
ers know, this has been a rather hard
season for vegetables. The drouth has
affected nearly all crops unfavorably.
Even those which we have been able
to coddle into continued life have too
often failed in some degree of quail
ty. 1 am especially fortunate in that
] am able to run many of my crops
from dry ground into wet land so thai
a part of them viii be apt to do tolera-
bly, well, whichever way the summer
heads,-towards drouth or drench.
Also. my crops are of the sort which
enables fairly constant cultivation, and
this helps a good deal towards the
conservation of moisture. But pracli-
cally all my garden crops are short,
and prices are high, and quality is a
l-e-e-t-l-e bit off. Here are a few
fairly accurate reports of what the
diplomats call pour parlers'' with
corn customers in the last fortnight:
Mrs. A rs your corn any better
than it was last week? 1t was so Oh
find tough that We couldn't eat it and
had To fhrour AWAY Won n11oht mt