Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [419]
“Now, to continue, I have here the kind of proposition that only a real salesman wants. If you’re not a real salesman, you don’t want this proposition, and there is no need of prolonging our interview. Now, do you have faith enough in yourself to believe that you can bring out that something in you that is the makings, the basis of real salesmanship?”
Trying to conceal his surprise under the man’s direct stare and pointing finger, Studs shook his head in affirmation.
“Well, speak up!” Mr. Peters said frettingly. “Speak up! You know a real salesman has to be able to talk. Nodding your head, you know, that’s not a positive answer. You got to speak out straight from the shoulder, crisp, straight, hard language. Even when you only say yes and no, you should say them with a punch.”
“Well, I think so. I haven’t ever sold, but I’d like to know what this business is, and then we could see.”
“That’s the idea. Now, if you want to handle our product, you got to be a real salesman. But if you are, there’s big money waiting for you. . . . Are you married?”
“I’m getting married.”
“And you want a job. Well, you’ve come to the right place. If you’re the right person, you’ll have no further worries. With the money you’ll earn on our product, you’ll be able to furnish that little love nest for yourself and the little girl. And you know what you need for smooth sailing on the stormy seas of matrimony? Money. As I have said, if you’re the right kind, if you can speak up, always dance on your toes, grasp your opportunities, be a character psychologist on sight, read a man’s mind, see the weak spots, the Achilles heel in his armor and drive a telling wedge through it to carry the sales off, and above all, always remember that cardinal principle of the irradiation of confidence, well, then, you and I can talk business.”
Studs glanced aside to prevent himself from smiling. He was sure that it was a sucker proposition, but then, there was one born every minute, and if there were enough chumps in the world, well, maybe, fifty, sixty dollars a week.
“Our proposition is this. We have a new sanitary paper cup. Now there are in Chicago hundreds and thousands of industrial establishments, stores, offices and the like that are backward and unsanitary, because they use the medieval method of letting employees drink from one drinking glass, or even a tin cup. These are old-fashioned, backward, stone-age methods, unmodern, unscientific, and they help to spread disease. Nobody likes to use another person’s, a stranger’s, drinking glass, and particularly not some rusty old tin cup that scores drink out of. Throughout this city there are people who spread diseases through drinking cups and glasses. That’s one of your principal selling points. It constitutes an irrefutable argument, and if you are clever it will gain you a high percentage of sales. The man who refuses to listen to it, who refuses to substitute our sanitary paper drinking cup for the old-fashioned, antiquated, disease-ridden drinking glass or tin cup, that man is backward, and he is risking the health of countless people.” The man pointed his index finger at Studs and glared until Studs felt like reminding him that he wasn’t making anyone drink out of a rusty tin cup. “A sanitary drinking cup, such as ours, is first of all scientific, and this is the age of science, the era of hygiene. Also, it is an aid to efficiency in a store, office, or factory. Why? Because it ministers to the better health of all concerned, and this makes for that increased efficiency. How does it achieve the purpose? Ha, proving that argument is like knocking over a straw man! If people are well, if they have less fear of disease, they work more efficiently because their psychology, their psychological attitude, is the right one. If there is a diseased employee in an office using an unsanitary medieval drinking glass or cup, the baneful, the dangerous, the mortal, results can be incalculable. That person can infect a valued member of the office force, and require him