here has been a turning away from
this. The desk is usually littered with papers and letters which the
caller can hardly help reading, and there are constant interruptions
from the telephone and the other members of the office. For these
reasons a number of business men are going out to see their callers
instead of bringing them in to see them, a practice which is much more
cordial than the other if one can afford the time for it. One big
business house abolished its large reception room and built in a number
of smaller ones instead. In this way each visitor has privacy and there
is a feeling of hospitality and coziness about the little room which the
bigger one failed to give. Each room was fitted up with comfortable
chairs, books, and magazines so that if the caller had to wait he would
have the means of entertaining himself.

Once a man agrees to see a salesman or other visitor he should give, in
so far as it is possible, his full attention to him. It is better to
refuse an audience altogether than to give it grudgingly. A prominent
man cannot possibly see all of the people, salesmen and whatnot, who
want to talk with him or he would have no time left to keep himself
prominent. A busy man has to protect himself against the cranks and
idlers who try to gain access to him, and most men have to have devices
by which they can rid themselves of objectionable or tiresome callers.
One man who has a constant stream of visitors has only one chair in his
office, and he sits in it. Another never allows a visitor to enter his
office, but goes to the outer reception room and stands while he talks.
One man stands up as a signal that the interview is at an end. Another
begins to fumble with the papers on his desk, and the salesman does not
live who is not familiar with the man who must hurry out to lunch or who
has only five minutes to catch a train. One man has his secretary or his
office boy interrupt him after a visitor has been in as much as ten
minutes, to tell him that Mr. So-and-So is waiting outside. Another
rises to his feet and walks slowly toward the door, the salesman
following, until he has maneuvered him out. If the salesman is a man of
sense none of these devices will be necessary. He knows that a courteous
and prompt departure helps his cause much more than an annoying
persistence, and the man who stays after his prospect's mind has lost
every interest except to get him out of the way is lacking in one of the
fundam