The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1912-08-22

less iand, says the Briton. would
never dream upon beholding these
gentlemen at work that their business
is primarily to sell something--eith, r
motor car or some appendage there
OF. Activity in any form IL abhor.
rent to them and any knowledge 4
their business appears thing to be
summed. In some shops it ~ a mat
ter of extraordinary difficulty to buy
car, armed as you may be with the
needful moneys"
Then he goes on to draw these pnn
pictures: These establish ments may
be divided into three classes The
hrst and most common is the gor-
geously furnished show room. con
tanning number Of bedizened cars
and chassis and little coterie Of lar.
guild young men who Toll gracefully
about the premises. These, as a rule.
know absolutely nothing about thu
machines they are supposed to sell
They may know the rated horsepower
Of each, but ask them for the bore
and stroke. the gear ratio or tho
weight, and you Will elicit nothing
more satisfactory than a racuous
stare and a. mumbled reference to tho
new catalogue which II appears has
not yet come out Insist but IA little
upon some point. let us say the reason
for certain change in design, and
you will hear that the manager or
the engineer, who can tell you all
about It, is at lunch or away selling
car to duke
I'm Impotence or disgust, according
to your temperament, you leave this
abode Of inepitude and 40 on to num-
Der two firm. Here you find vast
and empty hall. innocent alike OF ears
and humans The walls are often de-
corated with ferocious pictures of rae
ing cars in impossible situations. whose
drivers seem. by their expressions. TO
be in extremis But OF any person
in authority or in position either
TO give you information or to dtrect
YOU 10 some one who Ia. there is no
sign. For curiosity ] waited ten min
utes in the echofng void OF such a place
the other day before the jest lost
SAVIOR and / went on to another firm
Number three kind has no cars in
its showroom, but it boasts a quantity
of superior persons who are in no way
less irritating than the others under
review. You cannot have Ii car. you
learn "a perfectly reasonable state of
affairs but also no hope is offered YOU
/ of ultimately attaining your desire. IL
is quite impossible to say when they
can deliver chassIs. The last two
have just been bought by a music hall
manager and an Orleitai potentate and
they had 10 wait eight months for
| them
! For such as Yourself. therefore
what hope ia there This is the Mer
veille. you know, they tell you. inn
| plying that such priceless vehicles are
reserved for the mighty or such as can
/ paw the premium Each chassis is
! sold two years before Il is made, YOU
/ hear Congratulate the house, urge
them to put up a nosice To that effect
! and 60 away. 1t Is the only thing
/ TO be done.
If they have your address You VIII
/ proba bly, receive a communication by
/ the next post informing you that by
! the luckiest chance in the world there
/ does after all happen 10 be chassis.
which. &c, With this you should deal
as the mood takes YOU"
All this ia very amusing, SAYS
writer in the New York sun. ana l.
can be matched by the experience of
| man who came 10 go into the business
of manufacturing automobiles in this
/ city solely because OF the indifference
I with which he was treated by sales
man, so called. back in the dear old
! DAYS. This man. with $40, 600 to spend
on foreign car~-there being nothing
else at that time worth buying entered
| "a safesroonf and wanted TO see u car,
A angnid bud assured him they
didn't have a car in just then. None
| al allH Well there was one on the
| fourth floor II he wanted to go up
| there The sales youth didn't Indicate
/ that he would lead the way. but that
the other might find 1t for himself
/ Pictures Of the cars? After long
search the sales child said he couldn't
| find anything
BY this time the buyer was getting
weary, He figured that because his ex-
terror didn't appeal TO the clerk he
wasn't getting very good treatment so
| he left without comment When he
| got outside he said to himself. III
| they can afford to treat that way men
who are prospective spenders of si0.-
600 with them Want a pArt-of- this
business BY acting civilIy 7 can make
twice as much as they do" SO he got
started in the business and now is a
successful maker L.
But all the folks who are impertin-
1 emily or discourteously treated in au-
tomobile salesrooms can't afford to go
out and start automobile plants OF
their own. II may be said that be-
| cause of the hard competition nowo-
days there is less of the languid than
there used to be. But there is a
whole lot even now