Part 31

“You’re fired,” interrupted the Boss in a flannel voice and plainly whipped.

“I decline to quit!” thundered the Advertising Manager.

“All right then, STAY!” said the Boss with a sudden calmness. “We can get along together. We are onto each other.”

HOT SKETCH NO. 24

THE EXPORT GROUP GRAFTER

ON A crisp and crackling December morn, a Jones Farm sausage with a big cigar and deep-dish collar of four-flusher fur, swished into the office of Messrs Eazley Skinned & Co., Manufacturers.

He took out a race-track amplifier and announced that he was about to make a trip all the way to Europe in the interest of a group of Non Competitive manufacturers and would be pleased to let one other Representative Firm in on this satin-faced opportunity.

Now the office of Messrs Eazley Skinned & Co., was a placid, tooth-picking sort of a place. The business had been passed down the aisle from sire to son so many times that it had begun to wear slick in spots like the plush seat of the collection box. The whole place breathed of Longtime Service but very little business. Whenever the door opened every bucolic head in the room turned toward it like a Grammar School class.

The sudden announcement, therefore, that somebody was about to proceed on a hazardous journey to a far-off place like Europe created no little stir in this hive of hustle. We do not mean by this that it unleashed as much excitement as an Order would have done, or a Wall Street Bomb. But it was sufficient to start every pair of eyes forward from their bushings including those shrewd gray see-ers of Mr. Eazley Skinned himself.

The breezy visitor was immediately ushered into the private office of Mr. E. Skinned who put on his coat and reached for the trusty box of 5-scenters, calling meanwhile to the other shirt-sleeved Executives who came filing in. Soon every chair was tilted back comfortably and the fumes of the hemp panetella rent the air, so to speak. The show was about to commence.

“Gentlemen,” began the Weenie with the Collar, “the trip I am about to make will cover all of Europe.” He paused to let it sink in. Ernie Shackleton could not have done more.

“And the group of manufacturers I shall represent will have my Undivided Attention. I shall represent only the interests of the firms who are fortunate enough to sign up with me, and no other firm in America will be able to induce me to give them one single bit of trade information, no matter how many tears they shed.”

At this juncture nobody in the meeting thought to ask His Fur Collar how many firms he intended to represent. So he didn’t volunteer the information that he was out for a neat total anywhere from 40 and 4,000.

Then spoke up the President in an inquiring crescendo. “Just what cities, or whatever you call them over there, do you intend to visit?” he asked.

“Every metropolis in Europe,” flashed back the intrepid explorer as he began spreading a map of South Africa out over the desk, tracing with a pencil the various points he would touch on his daring expedition provided the domestic touch proved good enough to enable him to do so.

“I will sail from New York here (pointing to Cape Town) on the Acquatoonia on January 1st and my passage alone will cost me $350.00 for a 7-day trip or $50.00 a day before I even get to London. There it will cost me anywheres from $25.00 to $30.00 a day at the Sav-voy without counting Roast Lamb from the push-cart at Simpson’s which I understand is listing somewhat and from there I will cross the Channel to Paris and the channel trip alone will cost me $75.00 easily, and the tipping in Paris is fierce since the War.”

Here the coherent and logical trade commissioner was again not interrupted by anybody asking him if he had ever been in any of these places before, or had ever sold goods anywhere else on the face of the earth. So he very sensibly kept still on these points and continued to talk about the fierce expenses at every town he proposed to back into.

If any of his discriminating hearers at any time during the informing Foreign Trade discourse were interested enough in their own financial welfare to go through the enervating ordeal of dropping their chairs forward a few inches to take a look at his old bluff-map, he was not aware of it. Nor did any of them appear to wish to interrupt his forceful and lucid presentation of his program by asking him How About Orders or any other irrelevant thing like that.

They all merely puffed the old cabbagio, chins up and eyes on ceiling, and swung their legs as they watched the smoke rings float away from the bunk. Mr. Eazley Skinned broke in at one stage to tell about the big tips that Mrs. Eastbrook and her husband Jim Eastbrook said it cost them that time when they went to Euripp.

Things were coming along great and grand for the Bright Lad with the Grab Bag; so of his own accord he continued to elaborate his story. He told how he would distribute their catalogues and Price Lists wherever he went, and make regular monthly reports, and he explained how all orders that would flock in from the New York Export Houses would naturally be the result of his efforts and how the factory was to simply credit him with the commission on each shipment since he wouldn’t have time to always check up, being so busy selling goods all the time and so forth.

The Boss of the works here ventured to inquire how much that commission was going to be, and the Wise Gink modestly said 5% because he was leading up to something else. The Boss said 5% was fair enough and all whiskers around the room nodded affirmatively.

“Now then,” said the Dominating Personality as he came pounding down the final stretch, “in order to help defray a part of my expenses each manufacturer will be asked to pay $500.00, and in order to avoid the delays and expense of remitting, this amount will be paid by each one in advance.”

At this every tilted chair around the room suddenly and concertedly hit on all four cylinders and a few hep coughs and sideglances were exchanged, but there was no show of disapproval—merely surprise.

Observing this, the Globe Trotter jumped right into the breach fur collar and all, and began telling them all once more about the fierce expenses and explaining how he himself was going to stand 50% of the cost of the trip while the firms he represented would only be stuck with 50% all bunched together.

It was cheap, dirt cheap, for all they would get, and he was not charging in his time either—simply the actual cash outlay that he would have to suffer without an anaesthetic in travelling such costly terrytory. And the tips! Great Gamaliel, those tips!

To hear that boy unfold the thrilling drama of Europe’s Tipping Evil was like listening to a tale of Armenian Massacre. You just couldn’t help but thank God that you were right at home, safe from all tipping harm. Whenever he thought he saw one of his hearers struggling to get that Five Hundred Dollar Retainer past the adams-apple, he would come on again with another shower of Expenditures. He spent thousands of dollars for tips inside thirty minutes.

It is a custom of the Spanish arena to let the biggest and bravest bull out last. Likewise our heroic Trade Toreador saved up his best sword thrusts and wild waving of the red-lined cape until the last act.

And he was some bird at that! When he concluded, there wasn’t a whisker around the room that wasn’t trembling with suppressed excitement. Dream pictures of million-dollar single orders floated before the glassy eyes of every hypnotised galoot in the conference.