e has to make. He will run out of them
presently. In case he want any of yours, he will then ask for them, and
literally be at your mercy. As to

YOUR HANDS,

have them very clean. It will be a positive advantage to you to wear no
rings. In case the people like jewelry, it distracts their attention
from the great idea (a sale); in case they do not like gew-gaws, it will
put you in opposition. Make your great effort in the direction you think
the customer's mind is taking. Sell him what he thinks he wants first.
So much, sure. Then, if he changes his mind, it will be to your profit,
generally. When the customer speaks to you, it gives you your programme.
If he be cheery, imitate him. He is your friend and is giving you an
example. If he look hard at you,

LOOK RESPECTFULLY

at him. Serve him with alacrity, say nothing not necessary, and the joy
in your heart will thaw him out before long. Express to your customers
your desire that they should come again,--never by words, because that
is too difficult, except in a barber-shop, where it is a custom--but by
opening the door for them at their departure, even if you have to keep
another customer waiting, and by thanking them on receipt of the money,
or upon delivery of the goods if it be on account. There are very few
people who will remain cold toward you after they find out you are
really glad to see them. The general store of the rural town makes

THE FINEST-MANNERED MEN IN THE COUNTRY,

respectful, dignified, alert, and unruffled. I saw a clerk at the postal
money-order office in St Paul. The Swedes and Poles go there often to
send away money. That young man had such a charming way of showing an
old Swedish woman just how to make out an order before she had learned
to write, and he had such an awe-stricken way of receiving the
instructions of other money-senders who knew all about it, that I felt
he was a credit to America, and I mention the reminiscence only with
diminished pleasure from the fact that I have forgotten the young man's
name. Courteous treatment of a customer is necessary under every
conceivable circumstance. It may be a busybody has come in to worry you,
who never bought a cent's worth of you or anybody else whom you know;
nevertheless her tongue is an advertisement. If you can gain her good
will, even comparatively, as weighed by her estimate of other clerks, it
is better than a column advertisement in the local papers. When
Zachariah Fox, a