Your ShelfYour Projects

AT THE NECKTIE COUNTER

4%

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 4, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 36.

Read the full edition

AT THE NECKTIE COUNTER.

“Black neckties, if you please.”
Drummond, the salesman, stared across the counter at the speaker, as if his thoughts were in Egypt.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Black neckties—silk.”
Drummond threw a box down. The customer opened it.
“These are red, and not silk,” he said quickly. “Nobody wears black silk now,” Drummond said, yawning and looking indifferently at the plain old man before him. Then he took up the box and threw it back into its place.
“Have you none of the kind I want?” asked the old man.
“No, that kind of goods went out years ago. We don’t keep ’em,” said the salesman insolently.
“There are plenty of black ties,” said Sanders, the man at the next counter, in an undertone.
“I know; but what’s the use of bothering with an old back number like that? Methodist preacher, I’ll bet five to one. But I was telling you about my cousins, the Harts. The three brothers all left the village and came up to town. One is now a railway boss, one a banker, and the third a sugar man, all of them millionaires.”
“A lucky family! How was it?”
“They all had capital to start with. The man with capital wins out every time.”
“Perhaps you have neckties—black silk?” the old man said to Sanders. He had been lingering near the counter.
“I think there are some, sir,” said Sanders, taking down some boxes. He opened one after another, but there were no ties of the kind the old man wanted.
Drummond, with a half-amused stare at the persistent customer, turned away to gossip and giggle with a sales-girl.
Sanders anxiously took down box after box.
“I am giving you a great deal of trouble,” said the old man, kindly.
“That’s what I’m here for,” said the salesman pleasantly. “I am sure I shall find them.”
The box was found at last, and a necktie of theright width chosen, wrapped and handed to the troublesome customer with a smile.
The next morning Sanders received a printed slip, notifying him of his promotion in the store. Drummond also received a slip, but it informed him that after the end of the next week his services would no longer be required by Colton & Co. Underneath the printed form were written the words: “Civility and efficiency are capital as well as money; you will fail, because you have neither.”
“Who was the old bore?” demanded Drummond in a fury.
“It was John Colton, the silent partner of the firm,” said one of the men.—Youth’s Companion.