remark
passed among the clerks, see if you don't wonder if there isn't
something wrong with your clothes or feel sure that comment is being
made on your appearance or behavior.

"There is another form of impatience or self-consciousness on the part
of a customer who is more or less acquainted with the store. He
hurries past everyone in front, headed for the part of the store where
he thinks the goods he wants are kept.

"It is bad policy to step in front of him or otherwise impede his
progress. If there is no one to wait on him follow quietly and be on
hand when he lands at his destination.

"A clerk often wonders why customers persist in doing this.

"It is because they have an idea of the location of what they want and
blindly strike out for it with a certain nervous desire to cover the
intermediate ground as quickly as possible.

"Remember that while you feel perfectly at home in the store, few
customers do. It is your business to put them at ease and certainly to
do nothing to make them uncomfortable.

"When a man comes in for a suit of clothes he usually has some sort of
a mental picture of the thing he desires. An idea, clearly defined or
hazy, is in his mind as to the general color and effect of the suit he
wants.

"It is something he has noticed worn by someone else--looked at in a
show window, or seen in an illustration.

"In most cases it will not be the thing he finally buys. It may be a
chalk-line stripe or a Shepherd's Plaid worn by a drummer who boarded
the 6.30 Lightning Express. In the glow of the lamps and the bustle
and excitement of the Station platform the thing looked possible: but
confronted in the store with the very style and pattern he backs away
from it, though 'it looked good on the other man.'

"Find out what he has in mind; meet it as nearly as you can and get it
out of the way. Otherwise he will not concentrate on other goods. He
will hold to this mental picture and measure everything you show him
by it--much to your disadvantage.

"One of the worst possible things is to ask a man about what price
suit he wants.

"Keep price in the background. Time enough to feel him out on that
subject. No man likes to have you take the measure of his pocket-book.

"You must use your judgment in gauging him as to what to show him.

"The important thing is to get at the picture he has in mind, and the
price too, if you can do so without asking him to name the figure.

"Never ask a custome