Up the broad valley of the Euphrates a caravan comes toiling upon its way. It is fearfully hot; frightfully dusty. For it has come to mid-September; the rains are long weeks gone; and with the crops harvested, even the sails of the great mills that pump the irrigation canals full are stilled. The time of great heat and of little work. But still the caravan—the long, attenuated file of horses and camels must press on.

Ahead is Bagdad, that self-same ancient Bagdad which three thousand years ago was the commercial capital of the world. Through the heat waves and the blinding dust, the trained eyes of the Moslem can see the sun touching the gilded minarets and towers of her great mosques. Bagdad ahead. And at Bagdad the market-places which have stood unchanged for tens of centuries. Save that in recent years there have come to them these Americans—these shrewd agents of a little known folk, these rug-buyers of a far-away land of which they spin such fascinating tales. Tales far too fascinating ever to be believable. Yet Allah keeps his own accounting.

In the foyer of a lovely new home in newest New York a Persian rug is being spread for the first time. Its owner dilates with pride upon his purchase; shows those roundabout him the symbolism of its rarely delicate design; even to the tiny fault purposely woven into the creation by its maker to show in his humble fashion that only Allah may be faultless.

A great French city; this Lyons, by the bank of the lovely Rhone. For two centuries or even more its tireless looms have spun the rarest silk fabrics of the world. Nearby there is a little French village. Were I to put its name upon these pages, it would mean nothing to you. Yet out from it there comes a lace, so rare, so delicate, that one well may marvel at the human patience and the human ingenuity that conceived it. The silk comes to America, straight to the chief city of the Americas; so do the laces; and so in a short time will come once again the wondrous cotton weaves of Lille and of Cambrai—and will come as a tragic reminder of the five fearful years that were.

In the hot depths of a South African mine, negroes, stripped to their very waists, are toiling to bring forth the rarest precious stones that the world has ever known. In the fearfully cold blasts of the far North, facing monotonous glaring miles of lonely ice and snow, trappers are after the seal and the mink. Why? In order that milady, of New York, may sweep into her red-lined box at the Opera, a queen in dress, as well as in looks and in poise.

From the mine and from the ice-floes to her neck and back a mighty process has been undergone. The great multiplex machine of merchandising has accomplished the process. A thousand other ones as well. Herald Square sits not alone between the East River and the North, between the Battery and the Harlem, between five populous boroughs of the great New York, not alone between the four million other folk who dwell within fifty miles of her ancient City Hall, but between the shoe factories of Lynn, the cotton mills of Lowell and of the Carolinas, the woolen factories of the Scots and the nearer ones of Lawrence, the paper mills of the Berkshires, the porcelain kilns of Pennsylvania, between a thousand other manufacturing industries, both very great and very small, as well. Into Herald Square—into the red-brick edifice upon the westerly side of Herald Square and reaching all the way on Broadway from Thirty-fourth to Thirty-fifth Streets—all of these pour a goodly portion of their products. In turn, these are poured by the big red-brick store into the pockets and the homes of its tens of thousands of patrons.

A mighty business this; and, as we shall presently see, a business made up of many little businesses. Merchandising, financing, transportation; each has played its own great part in the bringing of that silk sock upon your foot or the felt that you wear upon your head. Each has co-operated; each has correlated its effort. There are few accidents in modern business. Rule-o'-thumb has stepped out of its back-door. In its place have come cool calculation, steady planning, scientific investigation. If modern merchandising has tricks, these are they. And they are the tricks that win.

In our last chapter we pictured R. H. Macy & Company as a machine of salesmanship. Now I should like to change the film upon the screen. I should like to show you Macy's as a machine of buying. Obviously one cannot sell, without first buying. Buying must at all times precede selling, while to meet competition and still sell goods at a profit, the keenest sort of shrewd merchandising must be used in purchasing. Your buyer must be no less a salesman than he who stands behind the retail counters and, what is more to the point, he must constantly keep his finger upon the pulse of the market. Which means, in turn, that he must not for a day or an hour lose his touch with manufacturing and financial conditions—to say nothing of the changeable public taste.

For the one hundred and eighteen different departments of the Macy's of today there are now sixty-nine buyers; the majority of them women. This last is not surprising when one comes to consider that by far the larger percentage of the department-store's customers are of the gentler sex. Women know how to buy for women—or should know. How foolish indeed would be the merchant prince of the New York of this day who would not instantly say "yes" to the assertion that feminine taste in buying is the one thing with which his store absolutely could not dispense. So the woman buyer in our city stores is so much an accepted fact as to call today for little special comment, save possibly to add that in no store outside of Macy's has she come more completely into her own. The buyer's job covets her. And she covets the buyer's job. Well she may. For it is a job well worth coveting—in independence, in opportunity and in salary.

In almost every case a buyer comes to the job from retail experience—although occasionally a knowledge of wholesale selling develops the required skill. In nine cases out of ten, however, he or she rises to the important little office on the seventh floor from the salesforce upon the retail floors beneath. From salesclerk he—or as we have just learned, usually she—is promoted to "head of stock," which is the title of the head clerk in a department having three or four or more clerks. This promotion comes from a superior knowledge of the stock, yet not from that alone: the clerk must have executive ability. An agreeable temperament is also a necessary ingredient to the potion of promotion.

To the position of assistant buyer is the next and logical promotion for the ambitious and successful "head of stock." After this should come the step to the big job—which steadily grows bigger—of buyer, or as the Macy store prefers to call it, department manager.

Department managers do no actual selling. They now have graduated from that. Yet none the less are they salesmen—in more than a little truth, super-salesmen. For not only must they know what to buy—and how to buy it at the most favorable price—but they are equally responsible for knowing what to do with their purchases, once made. They are the merchants of the departments; accountable for the saleability of their stock. It is very much their concern whether those departments show a profit or a loss. Little stores within a big store. A big store made up of more than a hundred little stores.

As we have seen, it is not an uncommon custom for some department-stores to rent out or even to sell the privilege of many, if not all of its little stores. Macy's—in recent years at least—has not followed this policy. It has found that its own best organization comes from keeping the department as a unit; a pretty distinct and important unit, right up close to the very top of the business, where its three partners are specialists in merchandising; and passing proud of that.

The foundation of all successful buying is built of the bricks of sales knowledge laid in the mortar of good judgment. It is squared up by a sixth sense that has no name—yet a qualification which, by its presence or its absence, makes or unmakes a buyer's value. In its various branches, however, this unnamed sense is required, to a varying degree, perhaps, least of all in the purchasing of staple goods.

For the sake of a more convenient understanding, let us begin by classifying the various needs of the insatiable Macy's into three major divisions: We shall put down staples, as the first of these; luxuries, as the second; and novelties, as the third. Under staples we shall include notions, cotton goods (such as sheets, pillow-cases and muslins) and, in general, the absolute necessities of life, including wearing apparel of the commoner varieties, household articles and the like. These are in constant purchase almost every day of the year. Take, for instance, that heterogeneous collection of articles, grouped under the generic and whimsical head of notions. There is thread of all kinds, there are hooks-and-eyes, snap-fasteners, hair-nets, darners, button-hooks, tape-measures and what all not more—far be it from me even to attempt to mention the more than four thousand separate items that must be constantly carried in the notion departments.

For all of these there is a huge daily demand, while a month's supply of any of them is all that can, as a rule, be conveniently handled in the store. It must be patent that, as there is never an equal demand for these small but essential articles, the buyers must be placing constant orders for them. So it is with everything else that people must have—irrespective of tastes, wealth or the season of the year—and the number of the list is legion.

Therefore, the buyer of staples does not depend so much upon the sixth sense as upon common sense. He must have plenty for the latter, however, and it is sure to be kept working on a fairly even basis throughout the entire year.

In the category of the luxuries are included such articles as jewelry, musical instruments, Oriental rugs, paintings, fine bric-a-brac and the like. Clearly the buyer in this branch must possess real taste and discrimination in addition to commercial ability, in order to be able to purvey these properly to the public. He handles goods which have to be bought by people who have already purchased the necessities of life—the buying of luxuries involves the spending of the public's surplus and so this division of the work is at all times attended with great or less hazard.

But the real hazards, the real necessity for that sixth sense, which I just mentioned, the hardest and most nerve-racking buyer's job, comes in the purchase of those goods grouped under the common title of novelties. As one of the members of the Macy's merchandise council once observed, the departments devoted to staples sell what the people want, while those devoted to novelties make the people want what they have to sell. And this last is quite true of the luxuries, as well.

Here, incidentally, is a very curious fact about merchandise: A staple is not a constant thing. In one department it is what everybody wants and in another it becomes a novelty. For instance, a cotton pillow-case selling for, let us say, a dollar, is a staple; while another pillow-case, of linen this time, embroidered with an old English initial, hand hemstitched and edged with lace—we hesitate to guess at its cost—is a decided novelty, in the understanding of the store, at any rate. It also may be classed as a luxury.

Styles, fads, exclusive designs and seasons determine the work of the buyer of novelties. The job is one that requires quick decisions. The staple buyer can "play safe," but the buyer of novelties who pursued the policy soon would find himself in the rear of the procession. Nor can he afford to make mistakes, for they may be costly indeed to the house that he represents. There is, in consequence, a greater demand on his nerve, his ingenuity and his imagination than you find in other classes of buyers. He must circulate where there are people—at the theaters, country clubs, restaurants, churches, in Fifth Avenue—and he must keep his ear to the ground and both eyes wide open. Consequently, when it is reported in the Sunday paper that the women of Paris have taken up the fad of wearing jeweled nose-rings, he must see that New York's women of fashion may have the same opportunity of expressing their individuality, by visiting Macy's jewelry department.

This, of course, is rank exaggeration, but it indicates what the novelty buyer aims at. And surprisingly often he hits the mark.

In such a huge establishment it is but natural that the reception hall outside the buying offices should be crowded most of the time. Mahomet oftimes goes to the mountain—or sends a representative to it to buy some of its goods—yet more often the mountain comes to Mahomet. And so, I am told, for five days a week—Saturdays being generally recognized as a closed day for buying—an average of from four hundred to six hundred and fifty salesmen a day visit the buying headquarters on the seventh floor of the store. Taking into consideration the fact that the goods purchased are paid for in cash within ten days of their delivery, these headquarters are most popular with the emissaries of manufacturers and wholesale houses. Added to this is the uniform policy of courtesy to salesmen, which has been stated by the company in its precise fashion:

"We have held, as far as within our power, the precept of which our late head, Isidor Straus, was a living personification—that business may be conducted between merchants who are gentlemen, in a manner profitable to both."

It is one thing to write a thing of this sort. It is another to live strictly up to it, day in and day out. But that Macy's does live up to this high-set principle of its behind-the-scenes conduct is evidenced by the unsought testimony of a manufacturer who sought for the first time to do business with it.

This man had made one of the mistakes into which all manufacturers are apt to fall, sooner or later. He had overproduced. And while, heretofore, his product had been chiefly, if not solely, sold in high-priced novelty shops he now needed an establishment of great turnover to help him out in his dilemma. Macy's came at once into his mind. The old house is indeed advertised by its loving friends. He went to it at once; by means of the special elevator, found his way, along with several hundred other salesmen, to the sample and buying rooms upon the seventh floor.

A young woman at the door received his card and, without delay, told him that he could see the buyer of the department which would naturally handle his product, upon the morrow; at any time before eleven, but under no circumstances later than noon. Better still, she would make a definite appointment for him for the next morning. Mr. Manufacturer chose this last course. And at the very moment of the appointed time was ushered into the buyer's little individual room. Contact was established quickly. The buyer already knew of Mr. Manufacturer's line, regretted that they had not done business together a long time before. He inspected the proffered samples, quickly and with a shrewd and practiced eye; finally called into the little room two members of the salesforce from the department down upon the ground floor. They agreed with him as to the salability of the product. He turned toward the manufacturer.

"Please bring your stock to No. — Madison Avenue next Tuesday afternoon, at half-past two."

Why Madison Avenue? The manufacturer was perplexed as he descended to the street once again. The curiosity was relieved on Tuesday, however, when he and his abundant goods were ushered into a big and sunlit room.

"We shall not be subject to any interruption here," said Macy's buyer.

And so they were not. For two hours the buyer and two of his assistants went carefully over the stock, then withdrew for a short conference amongst themselves. When they returned they handed Mr. Manufacturer a card. It read after this fashion:

"The figure on that card, with the word 'cash' heavily underscored was just one hundred dollars in excess of my minimum," said the manufacturer afterwards, in discussing the incident. "I paused a moment and then said: 'Gentlemen, I mean to accept your offer. You have figured well, as your offer is just sufficient to buy the goods. R. H. Macy & Company have secured this merchandise of unusual quality and I congratulate you.'"

At the beginning of this chapter we mentioned another form of the store's buying—where Mahomet goes to the mountain. This, being translated into plain English, means that Macy's must and does maintain elaborate permanent office organizations in Paris, in London, in Belfast and in Berlin. These in turn are but centers for other shopping work—shopping that may lead, as we have already seen, as far as the distant Bagdad.

For instance, from his office in the CitÉ Paradis in Paris, the head of the French-buying organization of the store controls the purchase of all goods for it, not only in France, but in Belgium and Switzerland as well. He virtually combs these busy and ingenious manufacturing nations for their latest specialties; from France, les derniers cris in fashionable gowns, millinery, perfumes and novelties of every description; from Belgium, fine laces and gloves; and from Switzerland, watches. These items, however, are merely typical; there are hundreds of others.

A young American woman, of remarkable taste and gifted with a genuine genius for buying, is upon the Paris staff and is engaged practically the entire year round in visiting exhibitions of every sort and variety, in hunting the retail shops, great and small, of the French capital and at all times acting upon her own initiative as a free-lance buyer. A job surely to be coveted by any ambitious young woman who feels that she understands and can translate the constantly changing tastes of her countrywomen into the merchandise needs of a store whose chief task is always to serve them.

For reasons that are not necessary to be set down here, the Berlin office of Macy's has been in statu quo for some years past, although it is just now reopening. The London branch is steadily on the search for the clothing, haberdashery and leather specialties which are the pride of the British workman, while from right across the Irish sea, at 13 Donegal Square, North, Belfast, come the fine Irish linens that so long have been a distinguished merchandise feature of the store's stock.

So it is, then, that forever and a day, Macy's is engaged in bringing the cream of European merchandise to New York—goods of nearly every kind that can either be made better abroad or cannot be duplicated at all in this country. Importing is indeed a large branch upon the Macy tree.

And in this branch romance oftimes dwelleth. The picture of the caravan toiling up the banks of the Euphrates is no idle dream at all. Upon the world maps of the merchandise executives of Macy's it is an outpost of trading as unsentimental as Lawrence, Massachusetts, or Norristown, Pennsylvania. Yet the buyer who goes to the old Bagdad from the new has a real task set for him. Obviously he must not only have a knowledge of his market and a keen sense of values, but he must also be a resourceful traveler; a merchant who can adapt himself to the ways of the people with whom he trades. His judgment, discretion and integrity must be above reproach, for often he is far away and out of touch with headquarters for long months at a time.

Take such a buying trip as the Oriental rug-buyer of Macy's recently made into the Orient and back again. It lasted eight months. In that time he traveled more than thirty thousand miles—by steamship, motor-car, railroad, horseback and on foot. The rug region of Persia is a long way, indeed, from Broadway and Thirty-fourth Street and to reach it he went to London and Paris, then to Venice, where he took a steamer for Bombay, upon the west coast of India. Thence he proceeded by another steamer up the Persian Gulf to the city of Basra, which is at the confluence of those two ancient rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates—between which the earliest Biblical history is supposed to have been made. Basra today is one of the world's great rug-shipping centers.

Then he went to Bagdad itself—the fabled city of Haroun-el-Raschid and the Arabian Nights—from whence he started into the very heart of Persia. He was not content, however, to remain idly there and let the rugs be brought to him. He went much further. Through Kermanshah, the city whose name is given to the rugs which come from Kerman, seven hundred miles to the southeast, to Hamadan, one of the main marketing-centers of the rug-producing country—that, briefly, was the beginning of his itinerary. He went carefully through Persia, picking up rugs here and there, having them baled and sent to Bagdad by mules or camels and shipped thence to New York; and he established warehouses to which rug-dealers brought their wares. The light of the Red Star shone in the East.

Roads in Persia leave much indeed to be desired, and as the chief means of travel, aside from beasts of burden, is by Ford cars, a buyer who covers much of its territory has a rather unenviable job. Gasoline in those parts costs four dollars a gallon, while if you hire a jitney you pay for it at the rate of a dollar a mile.

On his return trip to New York this buyer went back once again to India and north as far as the border of Afghanistan to investigate the condition of the rug market in that region. At ancient Siringar, in the Vale of Cashmere, he bought marvelous felt rugs made in the mysterious land of Thibet. And yet all the way throughout this long journey he was buying goods for only one department of the great store that he represented.

It used to be impressive to me when the hardware dealer of the small town in which I was reared would boast of the number of items that he held upon the shelves of his own center of merchandising. There were more than two thousand of them! He told me that with such an evident pride, as a Chicago man speaks of the population of his town, or one from Los Angeles, of his climate. And yet such a stock as that wonderful one that was told to my youthful imagination, is more than duplicated in Macy's—and is but one of one hundred and seventeen others. And the responsibility of buying these millions of articles is scarcely less great than that of selling them.