Alex the Great

"Aha!" he says. "Listen to this – 'Wanted. High class automobile salesman for the Gaflooey light delivery wagon. We have no time for experiments and successful applicant must make good at once. We don't want an order taker, but an order maker– a real, live, simon-pure hustler who will start delivering the goods the morning he goes on the payroll. This job pays ten thousand a year, if you show us you're worth it. Apply personally all day and bring references. This is imperative. We want to see your past record of sales elsewhere. Ask for Mr. Grattan, 1346 Broadway. If you haven't the experience, don't come!'"

"Well?" I says.

He puts down the paper and reaches for his hat.

"They'll probably be a lot after that there job, hey?" he asks me.

"About four thousand, I'd say offhand!" I grins.

"Fine!" he says, rubbin' his hands and smilin', "I love competition because it puts a feller on his mettle. Now look here, if I go down there and secure that job this mornin', do I get your eight hundred dollars?"

"What?" I hollers. "What d'ye mean, do you get my eight hundred?"

"Listen!" he says. "The bet was that I make good at the first thing I tackle, wasn't it – all right! Now this here job looks good to me. Ten thousand a year is nice money to start. If you're fair minded, you'll admit that in goin' after this job I'm up against a pretty stiff proposition. In the first place I don't know no more about automobiles than you do about raisin' hogs. I never sold one in my life. I don't know a soul in New York outside of you, Cousin Alice and that girl I took home last night, so I can't furnish no references on my ability as a salesman. The advertisement says you have to have 'em. As you say, they'll be thousands after that job. Fellers with swell fronts, high soundin' records in back of 'em and gilt-edged references. Now under all that handicap, if I walk in there and get the job, won't you admit I made good?"

"If you go down and ask for that job and they turn you down, you'll pay me, eh?" I asks him.

"At once!" he says, firmly.

"C'mon, Alex!" I tells him, puttin' on my hat. "I hate to cop a sucker bet like this, but maybe losin' it will reduce the size of your head a trifle and do you good!"

Once out in the street, he stretches his arms, pulls his hat down hard over his dome and stamps his feet.

"Watch me close!" he says. "Watch me close and you'll get some valuable tips on how to put yourself over. I told you I was gonna be new – just observe how I go after this job. The average New Yorker who wanted it would go right down to the office, present his, now, credentials and ask for it, wouldn't he?"

I nodded.

"The early worm catches the fish, y'know!" I says; "and in New York here – the town that made pep and hustle famous – a man would be down there at six a.m. waitin' for the place to open. Why, there's prob'ly a hundred or more there right now!"

"I hope there's a million!" he comes back. "It'll be more satisfaction when they hire me over all them others. Now I ain't goin' near that there office as yet. My system gets away from the old stuff – just keep your eye on Cousin Alex from now on!"

He buys a newspaper, finds the automobile section and, finally, a big display advertisement of the Gaflooey Auto Company. He takes out a letter from his pocket and on the back of it he marks the price, style, and a lot of other dope about Gaflooey light delivery wagons and then throws the paper away.

"Now," he grins, "I'm all ready, except to give them folks my full name for the payroll!"

At that minute, somebody slaps me on the back and I swing around to see Buck Rice chucklin' at me. Buck used to be one of the best second basemen that ever picked up a bat, till his legs went back on him and he got into the automobile game. I remember thinkin' how funny it was that he come along right then when me and Alex was talkin' about autos.

"Well, how are they breakin', Buck?" I says, shakin' hands and introducin' Alex.

"I think I have fanned with the bases loaded again," he laughs. "I put in five hours to-day tryin' to get the Mastadon Department Store to put in a line of six-cylinder Katzes on their delivery system. I got a private tip that they're changin' from the Mutz-36 and the first order will be about eighty cars. Of course that's a sweet piece of money for somebody and everybody in New York will be there to-day tryin' to grab that order off. You might as well try to sell radiators in Hades though, because Munson, the bird that does the purchasin', is stuck on the Clarendon and he wouldn't buy anything else if they was givin' 'em away!"

"Well, that's tough, Buck!" I sympathizes.

"Sure is!" he says, givin' me and Alex a quarter perfecto and grinnin' some more to show how disappointed he feels. "But I should worry! If I lose that one, I'll get another, so what's the difference?" He turns to Alex, "Y'know in New York here," he confides, "we don't have no time to hold no coroner's inquests over failures. We forget about 'em and go after somethin' else – always on the job, get me? You'll learn after you're here a while – that's what makes the town what it is. If I stopped to moan over every order I didn't put across, I'd be nowhere to-day. Nope, you can't do that in New York!"

"Another of them there New Yorkers, hey?" sneers Alex to me, after Buck has blowed. "Don't you see how that feller proves my argyment about how simple it is to make good here? From the way he's dressed – them, now, diamonds and so forth – he's probably a big feller in his line. Makin' plenty of money and looked on as a success by the ig'rant. Yet he lets a big order get away from him when it was practically a cinch to land it!"

"Say, listen!" I yelps – this bird was gettin' on my nerves. "If four-flushin' was water, you'd be the Pacific Ocean! You gimme a pain with that line of patter you got, and as far as salesmanship is concerned, I'll bet you couldn't sell a porterhouse steak to a guy dyin' of hunger. I'd like to see you land an order like Buck spoke of, you – "

"That's just what you're gonna do!" he butts in. "You're gonna see me land that very order he told us about – what d'ye think of that, hey?"

I stopped dead and gazed upon him.

"You're gonna which?" I asks him.

"I'm gonna land that order from that department store!" he repeats, grabbin' my arm. "C'mon – show me how to get there!"

I fell up against a lamp post and laughed till a passin' dame remarked to her friend that it was an outrage the way some guys drank. Then I led Alex to the subway.

"Listen," I says. "What about this job you was gonna get? Of course you know if you quit, I win the bet."

"Quit?" he says. "Where have I heard the word before? Who said anything about quittin'? I'm gonna get that order and I'm gonna get that job!"

"Fair enough!" I tells him, "but you're goin' at the thing backwards. How are you gonna take an order for autos when you ain't got no autos to sell? I suppose you figure on grabbin' the ten thousand dollar job first and then makin' good with a loud crash by landin' the big order, eh?"

He shakes his head and sighs pityin'ly.

"Would there be anything new and original about that?" he asks.

"No!" I says, "there wouldn't! But I don't see how you're gonna win out any other way."

"Of course you don't!" he sneers. "You're a New Yorker, ain't you? I'm supposed to be the rube, simply because I wasn't born on Sixth Avenue. Now I already told you my methods was new, didn't I? Anybody would work the thing the way you lay it out – and probably land neither the job nor the order. What a chance would I have goin' up there and askin' for that job first? Where would I come out against all them sellin' experts with letters and so forth to prove it? Why, they'd laugh me outa the office! B-u-t! – if I go to them with an order for fifty or sixty of their cars as actual proof that I can sell not only autos, but their autos, what will they say, then? D'ye see the point now? They ask me for a reference and I reach in my pocket and give them the order, which I've got before applyin' for the job, to prove to myself and them that I can sell automobiles!"

Oh, boy!

"Alex," I says, when I got my breath, "I gotta hand it to you! When it comes to inventin' things, you got Edison lookin' like a backward pupil. Go to it, old kid! If you put this over the way you have just told it to me, you'll own Broadway in a week!"

"I'm figurin' on ten days!" he says.

We arrive at the Mastadon Department Store and shoot up in the elevator to the office of G. C. Munson, the general manager. Alex has been readin' the notes he made on Gaflooey delivery wagons like the same was a French novel, and, by the time we got there, he could repeat their advertisement by heart. He starts to breeze right into the office and some dame appears on the scene and nails him.

"One moment, please!" she says, very cold – givin' Alex a look that took in everything from his hick clothes to his rube haircut. "This happens to be a private office. Whom did you desire to see?"

"If I thought they was anybody prettier than you here, I'd ask to have them brought out," says Alex, in that simple rube way of his which give no offense, "but of course I know that's impossible. Still, as long as I'm here, I'd like to see Mister Munson."

The dame melts and releases a smile.

"What did you wish to see him about?" she asks.

"About ten minutes," pipes Alex. "D'ye know there's somethin' about them navy blue eyes of yours that makes me think of my mother – isn't that funny?"

The dame surrenders and shows Alex all her nice front teeth.

"I'll see if Mister Munson is in," she says, handin' him a card, "but you'll have to fill this out."

Alex looks at the card which had this on it,

Mr ................

Desires to see ...........

Regarding ............

He laughs suddenly, takes out his fountain pen and fills the thing out. Lookin' over his shoulder I seen him write this,

Mr… Alex Hanley

Desires to see … Mr. Munson.

Regarding … The price of petrified noodles in Siberia.

"There," he says, handin' it to the girl without a smile, "give that to Mister Munson."

She takes it in without lookin' at it.

"Well, you crabbed any chance you might of had, right off the bat!" I says to Alex. "He'll get so sore when he reads that, he won't even let you in."

"Let him get sore!" chirps Alex. "He'll not only get sore, he'll get curious and then again I'm figurin' on him bein' human, besides bein' general manager and havin' a sense of humor! He's probably been pestered with auto salesmen all day – if I wrote my real business on that card he'd send word he was out. As it is, he'll read it and he won't be able to resist the, now, temptation to get one look at a feller which would want to know from a man in his position the price of petrified noodles in Siberia. No matter what happens afterwards, he'll want one look – wouldn't you?"

Before I can answer, the dame comes out laughin'.

"Step in," she says. "Mister Munson will see you."

"Now!" hisses Alex, as we ease in on the velvet carpet. "Watch how I go about sellin' autos. Y'see I got a nibble already because I was new! I – Howdy, Mister Munson!"

We was in the private office.

Munson was a little, keen-faced guy – bald, nervous and fat. He looks up over his glasses with Alex's card in his hand – and Alex looks back. In one second they had each found out all they wanted to know about the other.

"What's the meaning of this nonsense?" barks Munson.

Alex walks over to the desk, wets his lips and gets goin'.

"Mister Munson," he says, "if you called on a man at his office, would you care to write your business on a card for the office boy to read? No – you would not! A big man like you would probably tear the card up, leave the office in a, now, rage and never return! You'd be insulted, your, now, dignity would be hurt, eh? You might be from out of town and comin' here to leave a big order and that little thing – prob'ly invented by one of your New York efficiency stars – would make you so mad you'd go away and order where they wasn't so efficient, but a little more courteous! Look at that card – the, now, wordin' of it. Look how cold and hard it is! No warmth, no 'glad-to-see-you-stranger what-can-my-house-do-for-you?' about it. It's like a slap in the face! Maybe it does keep the panhandlers away, but did you ever figure how many orders it must have cost you, hey?"

Munson has listened to every word, first with a heavy frown and then with a kind of thoughtful look on his face. He taps the desk with a lead pencil, reads the card a couple of times and then slams his fist on the desk.

"By Peter, young man!" he snaps out suddenly, "you may be right! The wording of that office blank is rather insulting, now that I dissect it – been too busy before to notice it. Yes, sir, I would resent having my business blatted out before a whole staff of subordinates! There must be some way, of course, to keep out the hordes of jobless and what not who would get in if it wasn't for that blank and now, by the eternal, we'll find one less liable to turn away gold with the – er – grist! I thank you for the suggestion. And now, what did you want to see me about?"

"Automobiles," says Alex, "and – "

Munson freezes right up and slaps his hands together.

"That's enough!" he snarls. "Perhaps that office blank of ours is not so bad after all! If you had filled it out properly, you wouldn't be here. I've heard enough about autos to-day to last me for the rest of my life. Yesterday, I mentioned casually, and I thought in confidence, that we were considering a change in our delivery system. Beginning at eight this morning, there has been a constant stream of automobile salesmen in this office! The only persons who have not tried to sell me automobiles are George Washington, Jack Dempsey and Billy Sunday! I'm quite sure every one else has been here. The air has been filled with magnetos, self-starters, sliding gear transmissions, aluminum crank cases and all that other damnable technical stuff that goes with automobiles! You need not open your mouth – I know exactly what your sales talk is, they're all alike, more or less. Your car is far and away the best on the market, of course, and – "

"Excuse me, Mister Munson!" butts in Alex. "You get me all wrong. Our car – the Gaflooey – is not the best on the market. There are others just as good and some of the higher priced ones are, naturally, better. You can't expect the best on the market for the price we sell at – 750. A man of your intelligence knows that and when a salesman tells you his five hundred dollar car is better than a standard make at five thousand, he's insulting your intelligence. We make a good, honest car – that's all. I ain't gonna take up your time tellin' you about the – eh – ah – the – eh, magneto and so forth. Unless you're a mechanic, you wouldn't understand about 'em anyways. All the parts that go with any car are on ours, or it wouldn't work – that's understood. However, as I said before, I ain't gonna take up your time. I know how you New Yorkers do business, and you've probably made your mind up already. You big men are all zip! – like that. Mind made up and nothin' can change you. Even if you do miss somethin' good now and then, you don't mind because you have the satisfaction of bein' known as a quick thinker. We just got in a new consignment of cars to-day and if you're interested our place is at 1346 Broadway. Well, good-day, sir!" he winds up, reachin' for his hat.

"Wait!" says Munson, takin' off his glasses and wipin' 'em. "You're a new one on me, son! So you admit you haven't got the greatest auto that was ever made, eh?" he chuckles. "By Peter! That sounds strange after all the talk I been listening to to-day. If your car is as honest as you seem to be, it's all right!" He sits lookin' off in the air, tappin' the desk with the pencil again.

Alex nudges me and we start for the door. Halfway he stops and looks at a photo that's framed over the desk. It's a picture of a barn, some chickens and a couple of cows.

"Right fine landscape, that!" chirps Alex to Munson. "Makes a feller like me homesick to look at it. Them are sure fine Jerseys, too – and say, see them pullets, would you!"

"That's my little farm down on Long Island," says Munson, throwin' out his chest. "I suppose that makes you laugh, eh? Big, grown New Yorker having a farm, eh?"

"Mister," says Alex, sadly, "it don't make me laugh! I was raised on a farm in Vermont and – "

"That so?" cuts in Munson, lookin' interested. "Country boy, eh?"

"Yep," goes on Alex. "Now, speakin' of them pullets there – if you'd try 'em on a straight diet of bran and potatoes – pound of each – they'll fatten up quicker."

"Yes?" pipes Munson, brightenin' up some more. "Well, well! And – hmph! Thanks, Mister Hanley, I'll make a note of that. Now – eh – sit down a minute! I don't want to take your time, but – eh, what did you find best back home for saving the young chicks? What foods – "

"I'll just leave you a few little rules," says Alex, his eyes glitterin', as he rams his elbow a mile in my ribs. "I got to call on another department store this afternoon, where I'm almost certain to take an order and – "

"Young man!" Munson shuts him off, "I'm frank enough to say that you've made a very favorable impression on me. You're honest about your car, and you didn't try to overawe me by hurling a lot of unintelligible technical terms into my ear. You don't claim it's the bargain of the age. Now we have recently inaugurated right here in this store a policy of absolute honesty with regard to our merchandise. No misrepresentations are permitted. We sell our goods for what they are – we don't allow a clerk to tell a customer that he's getting a five-dollar shirt for two dollars. I can't get the car I want to put in here – they want too much money and their salesman spent most of his time here speaking in terms that none but a master mechanic on their own auto would understand. I'm a pretty good judge of character and you look good to me. Give me a price on fifty of your cars for immediate delivery and – well, let's hear your figures!"

Alex drops his hat on the floor, but when he picked it up, he was as cool as a dollar's worth of ice.

"Just a minute," he says, sittin' down and reachin' for a desk telephone. He gets the Gaflooey Company on the wire.

"Hello!" he says. "Say – I want a lump price on fifty delivery wagons – what? – never mind who this is, if the price is right I'll come up." He winks at Munson like he's lettin' him in on somethin' – and, by gravy, Munson winks back! "Yes – fifty," says Alex on the wire. "Thirty-five thousand dollars? – thank you!" He hangs up the phone and turns to Munson. "They'll give you twenty-five hundred off, accordin' to that figure," he says.

Munson grabs up a pad and writes somethin' on it.

"There!" he says, givin' it to Alex. "Tell 'em to get as many cars over here to-morrow as they can. Get your bill and I'll O.K. it. Now – " he pulls his chair over closer, "About those chicks and – oh, yes, I want your opinion on some figures I have here on my truck – "

An hour later, me and Alex walks into the salesroom of the Gaflooey Automobile Company. I was in a trance, and if he had of promised to lift the Singer Buildin' with one hand I would of laid the world eight to five he could do it! The whole place is in confusion – salesmen chasin' around, telephonin' and actin' like they just heard they was a bomb in the basement. Alex asks for the manager, and some guy chances over and asks what he wants.

"I have come for that ten thousand a year job you advertised this mornin'," says Alex.

"Job?" howls the manager, glarin' at him. "You poor boob, can't you see how busy we are here now? We just got a tip on a real order – fifty cars, and we can't trace the thing!" He rubs his hands together. "Fifty cars! That's how the Gaflooey sells – fifty at a time!" He sneers at Alex. "Your approach is terrible!" he says. "You'll never land a job in this town like that, my boy. Go somewhere first and learn how to interest a busy man with the first thing you say and – "

"Listen!" butts in Alex. "Gimme that job, will you, or I'll have to go somewhere else."

The manager laughs, as a couple of salesmen come along and join him. They all sneer at Alex and the manager nudges his minions and winks.

"So you think you're a ten thousand dollar auto salesman, eh?" he says. "Ah – who can you refer to?" He makes a bluff at takin' down notes.

"Mister Munson, of the Mastadon Department Store," says Alex.

"Ha, ha, ha!" roars the manager. "Department store, eh – that's rich! You quit the shirtwaist department to sell autos, eh? Ha, ha, ha! What does a department store manager know of your ability to sell autos?" he snarls.

"Well, – I just sold him fifty of yours!" remarks Alex. "So I thought – "

"What?" shrieks the manager, grabbin' his arm.

Alex hands over the order Munson give him.

"Now before I go to work here," he says, "it might be a good idea to let me look over one of your cars, because, to tell you the truth, I ain't never seen one of 'em in my life!"

Well, they had Munson on the phone in a minute and in another one the manager hangs up the receiver and comes back.

"Do I get the job?" asks Alex.

"Do you get the job!" yells friend manager, slappin' him on the back. "No, you don't get it – only if you leave here without signing your name to a five-year contract and accepting a check for fifteen hundred dollars' commission and as much more as you want to draw on your expense account, I'll – I'll – murder you! But first, you lunch with me at the Fitz-Barlton and we'll map out a campaign – "

"Gimme that eight hundred!" says Alex to me.

I passed it over still semi-conscious.

Alex stretches his arms, puts the money away and grins.

"Get me that Eve girl on the phone, will you?" he tells me. "I – I had a little bet with her, too!" He lights the cigar Buck Rice had give him in the mornin', blows out some smoke and looks over at Broadway, jammed with the matinée crowd. "Some burg!" he says, shakin' his head and grinnin' at me!

CHAPTER II

THE SELF-COMMENCER

There's nothin' the world loves so much as a good tryer. I don't mean the birds that havin' everything in their favor, includin' a ten-mile start, finishes first in the Big Race – I'm talkin' about the guys that never get better than second or third, but generally land in the money. The old Consistent Charlies that, no matter how many times they're beaten, figures the time to quit is when you're dead and buried!

Did you ever stop to think that the tryers which never get nowhere is responsible for the other guys' success? They're the babies that make a race or a fight out of it, and if it wasn't for them dubs there'd be no successes at all. In order to have winners, we got to have losers, don't we? And don't forget that yesterday's losers are to-morrow's winners and vice-president or vice versa, whatever it is.

A fighter knows that these birds which come up smilin' no matter how many times he drops 'em for the count is as dangerous as dynamite, until he knocks 'em cold. No matter how bad this loser may be battered up, he's always got a chance while he's tryin'. I've seen guys that was winnin' by two miles curl up and quit before a dub they had beaten till the crowd was yellin' for mercy, simply because this poor bunged-up simp kept comin' in all the time – battered, bloody, drunk with wallops —but tryin' up to the last bell!

Now these guys may never get nowhere, but they're the birds that's put most of the guys that do where they are. Why? Think it over! You gotta be good to beat them birds, don't you? They make competition keen, they keep the other guys on their toes, they're the gasoline that keeps the old world goin' forward on high and the birds that get over are only the chauffeurs. You gotta have both to run the car and the universe wouldn't move forward six inches if we didn't have one failure for every success.

So if you've failed to set the world on fire up to date, don't walk out on the dock to see what kind of a jump it is. If you can't be a winner, you can be a good loser and it's a toss-up which is the bigger thing! A guy who can beat the yellah streak we all pack somewheres, every time he fails to register a win, and will keep rememberin' that to-morrow has got yesterday beat eighty-seven ways, is no loser! On paper he mightn't be a winner, but he is. He's a bigger winner than the bird that gets over, because he's whipped the quit in him without no kind applause to cheer him on. I've seen losers that attracted more attention in runnin' last than any six winners in the same precinct.