Bulder, the Garter trading stamp man, called according to arrangement.

"Good morning, Mr. Black," he said heartily, as he entered the store. "Well, I don't think we'll have much difficulty in getting this little matter fixed up to-day. It is going to mean a big thing for you, and you can be quite sure that the Garter Trading Stamp Company is going to be at the back of you to make this thing a big success."

He spoke quite confidently, as if he were sure I was going to take them up. And indeed I had been all along practically decided to adopt them.

"That's fine," I said in response to Bulder's greeting. "I want you, however, to meet Mr. Fellows, who is waiting in my office." I saw a faint change take place in Bulder's manner. He seemed at once to become a little suspicious and on his guard.

"Fellows? Fellows?" he replied. "Oh, one of your men?"

"Well, yes and no," I returned with a laugh. "He is connected with the Flaxon Advertising Agency and he does all my advertising, and I like to get the benefits of his ideas."

"Mr. Black," said Bulder, "I am doing this business with you, and while I am sure that Mr. Fellows is a mighty fine man, you could hardly expect me to want to talk this matter over with him—at any rate, with the idea of helping you to decide what to do; for, you see, he is an advertising man and naturally wants to spend all your appropriation himself."

"Fellows isn't that kind," I replied, somewhat curtly.

Bulder saw that he had been tactless, so he put his hand on my shoulder, and said, soothingly:

"That's all right, Mr. Black, I was only joking. Glad to talk the matter over with any friend of yours."

I don't know why it was, but I seemed from that moment to feel a distrust of him. I had rather liked him before. But now he seemed to me too suave, too—oh, too fat and easy about it.

Well, we went into my little office and I introduced him to Fellows.

"Our mutual friend, Mr. Black," said Bulder with a smile, "wants me to talk over with you both the splendid possibilities of his store through the Garter Trading Stamps. Good idea. It shows he is cautious and has good judgment."

"Mr. Black is quite a busy man, you know, Mr. Bulder," Fellows replied, "and perhaps don't have time enough always to think over every angle of a proposition; so he very wisely believes in talking things over and getting an outside viewpoint. Mr. Black can analyze these problems himself just as well as you or I can; but he believes in conserving his time and energies as much as he can."

All this preliminary by-play interested and amused me. But then the real battle began. Imagine those two—that big, burly, good-natured, somewhat bulldozing Bulder, and the shrewd, courteous New Englander, Fellows; Bulder with his heavy, sledge-hammer methods,—the bludgeon method, you might call it,—and Fellows with his keen, sharp, rapier methods.

Bulder realized at once that Fellows was strongly against the stamps, and that it was going to be a battle of wits and logic. I had better confess that my sporting blood was roused, and I had decided that the fellow who won the argument would have me on his side.

"What do you know about the company?" I asked Fellows, so as to get things started.

"Not a thing," he said, "but I am sure that that is a matter of minor importance; for Mr. Bulder is too big a business man to connect himself with an organization that is not thoroughly sound."

Very neatly put!—and yet I could see that, even if the trading stamp proposition won, Bulder would still have to prove that his company was financially and morally sound.

How I wish I could write down in full detail all that was said by both of them, but I can't remember it all. Bulder started in with a few heavy blows by stating that the Garter trading stamps gave the merchant who handled them a decided advantage over his competitors; for their splendid premium catalog, their numerous supply stations, the fact that they would let me have a set of representative premiums for window display, the excellent line of advertising matter which he said was part of the service which I bought from them at the time I bought their stamps. ... "You quite understand, Mr. Black," he said laboriously, "that you are not buying just trading stamps from us, or trading tokens as we prefer to call them, but you are buying a merchandising service—you are buying all the selling ideas and helps which we can give you, besides the splendid backing which the name of Garter stamps gives you.

"And," he continued to Fellows, for he knew that Fellows was the opposition and not I, "when Mr. Black takes up our agency, no other hardware man in town will be able to get it. ... In fact," he said, with a sudden burst of generosity, "so that there will be absolutely no question of full protection and no competition, we will not even supply a glass and china store, a five-and-ten-cent store, a cutlery store, or a novelty store—in fact, any other store which might compete with him in any way.

"Thus, you see, I am offering you something, Mr. Black," he said with an ingratiating smile, "which is a wonderful advantage to you. It will really put your store in a class by itself."

"Fine!" broke in Fellows, before I could say anything. "A thought has just occurred to me, however. While you promise that no other hardware man shall have the Garter stamps, can you promise that no other trading stamp concern will offer stamps to any other hardware man in Farmdale?"

Bidder replied with a deprecating smile: "What other concerns are there of our importance and size?"

Fellows came back with the names of two concerns which were better known to me than the Garter trading stamp.

"Why, yes," drawled Bulder, "of course, they might offer stamps to some other hardware man. But, my dear sir, think a minute—what are the value of their stamps compared to ours? Why, my good friend, you can't compare them! Every woman in town knows that Garter stamps have a higher premium value than any others."

"Exactly," replied Fellows. "By the way, what other stores have you in this town at present?"

Bulder slowly turned until he was facing Fellows. Leaning his elbow on the desk, he asked:

"Didn't I tell you that I was giving Mr. Black the opportunity to reap the big benefit of being the first with our stamps here?"

"That's funny!" I broke in impetuously, but a look from Fellows stopped me. I had been going to say that I didn't see how his last two remarks gibed; for in one breath he had said that every woman in town knew that Garter trading stamps were better, and in the next he had said that I was to reap the first big benefit of having the stamps.

Fellows had leaned forward and was saying to Bulder:

"Mr. Bulder, do you really believe it is good business to offer something for nothing?"

"Surely," cried Bulder, "you are not going to bring up that worn-out argument? Everybody knows that it is not something for nothing. ... Look here, my good friend," said he, turning to me, "if you buy some goods and pay cash you expect a discount for paying cash, don't you?"

"Yes," I replied hesitatingly.

"Surely you do! And if you didn't get the discount for cash, you would take all the credit you could, wouldn't you? ... Very well," he continued, without waiting for a reply, "that's what our stamps will do. They are not something for nothing. They are merely a discount for cash. People that don't pay cash don't get the stamps. ..."

Then he went on to tell me about some stores which had changed from a credit basis to cash through the use of Garter stamps. In my imagination I saw Fellows being driven into a corner by Bulder's bludgeon, his rapier beaten down and his defenses gone.

Fellows kept trying to work a word in edgewise, but Bulder, by the continued force of his words, beat down all Fellows' attempts to break in. Finally Bulder leaned back and said:

"Surely you are not going to stick to your foolish idea that trading stamps are something for nothing. All sensible people know that no one can give something for nothing and live, and I trust that the trading stamp concerns are sensible people. It is merely a cash discount."

"Why couldn't I give a cash discount, instead?" I asked—and as soon as I said it I was sorry I had, because I noticed a look of annoyance in Fellows' face.

"That is a very sensible question," said Bulder. "Because if you did give the cash discount yourself it would be so trifling that the people would not realize it was of any advantage to them. If somebody comes in and spends a dollar with you, and you give them two cents discount, what is it to them? It is nothing at all! But if you give them trading stamps, those have a real value in their eyes."

"Then why couldn't I give trading stamps of my own—just have them printed and give them out?"

"Because every trading stamp concern in the country could beat you on the value of your premiums. Think of the tremendous buying power that we have. It would be absolutely impossible for you to give trading stamps of your own and have any chance with competition. Now, I don't think for a moment that you are not as keen a business man as the next fellow, but the big concerns realize that it is specialization that means success, and we have simply specialized in this one branch of marketing to help you fellows do something which you could do yourselves, but not nearly so effectively or cheaply as we can. Do you think the big department stores up and down the country would have trading stamps from us if they could handle them as cheaply themselves? No, of course not!"

"Well," here broke in Fellows quietly, "I may be mistaken, but I believe that trading stamps are an outgrowth of inefficiency and laziness on the part of retail merchants. Of course, the people who sell trading stamps get value for their money, but the retailer and the consumer both pay for it. The retailer pays for it by losing, let us say, three per cent. on each turn-over of his stock investment. Suppose Mr. Black here turns his stock over five times a year, he is really paying fifteen per cent. of his investment to you people for something which you must admit is not exclusively his. Do you think it is possible for a retail merchant to continue that and live? If it is, he might spend that fifteen per cent. in increasing the quality of his store service rather than to pay it to an outside organization to supply a substitute for it. One thing is sure—no merchant can pay fifteen per cent. on his investment and stand that expenditure himself. If he handles the stamps, why, up go his prices, wherever he can manage it, to make the consumer pay for them."I am sure you will agree with me that in the end it is the consumer who pays the freight. This whole proposition looks to me like selling a man a sack of flour, and then making him pay for the sack of flour and a half dozen collars or a pair of suspenders besides. He doesn't want those collars or suspenders, mind you, but they are included with the purchase price, and, whether he takes them or not, he has to pay for them."

Bulder leaned back with a patronizing air. "My young friend," he said to Fellows, "you talk very interestingly, but the things you say are mere generalities. You have not given a single concrete fact showing where the trading stamps would hurt our friend here, while I have already given Mr. Black a number of cases, which he can easily verify for himself, of merchants who have improved their business by trading stamps.

"My proposition to Mr. Black is that he tries the stamps for a year, and if he does not find"—and here he tapped the table impressively with his fingers—"if he does not find that they have actually increased his business, why then we will call the deal off. We will risk—gladly risk—all the heavy expenditures of working with Mr. Black. We will risk the lost prestige to ourselves of having a dealer give up our splendid offer; and I do this, Mr. Fellows, because I know from past experience—not from mere theories—that Garter stamps will mean an increased profit to Mr. Black."

"Would you supply any other line of business in this town, Mr. Bulder?" asked Fellows quietly.

"Certainly, my young friend. Because by doing so it would help Mr. Black. Don't you see that, if one hardware man, and one druggist, and one dry goods store, and so on, had our stamps, all those merchants would be in a class by themselves? It would make them the leading merchants in the town, for people would trade with them so that they could collect the Garter stamps."

"I see," returned Fellows quietly. "And the man who gets stamps here from Mr. Black would be able to buy, let us say, a hat or some china ornaments through you people, which would, incidentally, deprive the local men's furnishing store or china store of the sale of those articles. And, of course, that same man might get trading stamps from other stores, and with those stamps he could buy a pocketknife through you people, and thus take the sale of that pocketknife away from Mr. Black."

Bulder waved the question aside as though not worth bothering with. "My dear man," he asserted, "the people who get things for those trading stamps get things they would not buy otherwise. That is surely a very trivial contention."

Fellows looked at me and said:

"Black, I have no reason to take any more of yours or Mr. Bulder's valuable time, as I see nothing else to say except that I strongly advise against the adoption of this or any other trading stamp or profit-sharing scheme which you do not control yourself. Of course, a few merchants in a town can get together and run this trading stamp system, whereby your stamps are accepted for cash in other stores and other stores' stamps are accepted for cash in your own, and by that system there might possibly be some benefit in the trading stamps. But I believe that any merchant who uses trading stamps—and I do not refer to your excellent company, Mr. Bulder—is merely building up business for some outside organization. He is merely diverting some of his own profits into the pockets of the trading stamp concerns, which do not really build up any business at all; because, if the stamps prove successful for one merchant, it will not be long before other merchants take them up and then every one is giving profits to the trading stamp concerns without any of them getting any real benefit from it. I believe the use of trading stamps is more or less an admission of inability to think up plans of getting business for oneself."

Bulder smiled. He was once again the acme of courtesy.

"That argument of yours sounds excellent, Mr. Fellows," he said suavely. "Excellent! But why not apply it to your business? Why not say that if one merchant advertises, all merchants will advertise and thus the benefits of advertising are nullified?"

Fellows was once again beaten down, I thought. He was plainly stumped for a few seconds. Then he replied:

"There is something in what you say, Mr. Bulder. But with trading stamp competition every one is offering merely trading stamps. There is no particular difference between them, and one offers no material advantage over another. But advertising is different. You yourself admit that, and appreciate the benefits of advertising, for in your own printed matter"—and here he held some of it up—"you advise the merchant to advertise the trading stamp proposition, 'thus'"—he quoted from a folder—"'tying up the prestige of the Garter trading stamps with the local merchant's own store.'

"Now, while in trading stamps there is no apparent difference, with advertising one can express one's personality and character, which trading stamps never do. There are so many ways in which one may advertise: newspapers, billboards, booklets, form letters, street car signs; and you can make your advertising such that it will be better than your competitors'. But trading stamps are trading stamps and nothing more. The story of advertising is as varied as language itself. With advertising you can vary the appeal so that it always has a freshness which trading stamps must soon lose."

Bulder was plainly perturbed.

"I claim," he said heavily, "just the same distinction, that same personality—why, the very dress of our trading stamps is an advertisement, just as is the design on those Kleen-Kut tools I see displayed there. They are well-known, they are recognized by the trademark, and that is their individuality. Our trading stamp has the same individuality—it has our peculiar design and trademark."

"I am unconvinced," said Fellows, shaking his head with finality. "Your arguments sound excellent, but the fact remains that once a dealer takes on trading stamps it is difficult for him to get rid of them. People come in and ask for the stamps—"

"Good night!" I thought. Bulder was quick to respond.

"Of course they come and ask for the stamps. And if we offer these stamps to other dealers, and then people come to Mr. Black and ask him for them, and find he doesn't have them, won't that hurt Mr. Black? Won't they say that Mr. Black isn't as progressive as other people? If the people demand trading stamps, it is up to Mr. Black to give them, for, if he is not progressive enough to do so, he will drive them to some other store."

"I take strong exception to your words," said Fellows evenly. "I don't appreciate your slur on the 'progressiveness' of my—of Mr. Black."

"I beg Mr. Black's pardon. I spoke hastily. But you must admit, Mr. Black, that the unreasonableness of your friend is exasperating."

Fellows ignored the last remark. Apparently to no one, he mused:

"I remember in the little town of Wakeford some of the merchants there got this trading stamp 'bug.' First one got it, then another, and then they were all giving trading stamps—that is, all those who did any real business. And then one of them thought he would steal a march on the others, and began giving double trading stamps on Saturday. In two weeks they were all giving double trading stamps on Saturday. It has got so now that they are giving double stamps every Friday and triple stamps on Saturday! I suppose before long they'll be all giving double stamps every day of the week. Pretty tough on those merchants, isn't it?"

Bulder looked at Fellows with some amazement in his face, for Fellows' remarks were not apparently addressed to either of us; he was gazing through the window of the door leading into the store.

"Pretty tough on those merchants," Fellows continued, "because, when they give double trading stamps, they increase their percentage of cost on their capital from 15 to 30 per cent. assuming they have a 5 times turnover. Of course it's all right for the trading stamp concerns, because the more stamps that are sold, the more profit they make.

"By the way, Mr. Bulder, do you sell stamps in Wakeford?"

"Why, yes, we do sell some," was the reluctant response.

I saw the point at once, and instantly I made up my mind that I would not take the chance of being drawn into a war of giving trading stamps away in competition with other stores, and I quietly told Bulder that we were merely wasting time now, that I had definitely decided not to touch the proposition at all.

Bulder shrugged his shoulders. "I am sorry that you let this opportunity go by. But please don't come to us in a few months' time and ask to do business with us, for we shall unquestionably close with some other hardware store before I leave town to-day."

He was once more the suave and polished man of the world. He shook hands pleasantly with us, cracked a joke or two, and left the store, apparently in the best of humor.

Hardly had he gone out when Fellows went to the telephone and called up Mr. Barlow. I don't know what Barlow said, but I heard Fellows say:

"This is Fellows of the Flaxon Advertising Agency. I am at Dawson Black's. We have just had the Garter Trading Stamp man here. You knew that Black was thinking of taking up the trading stamp proposition. Well, he has turned it down cold. I thought you might like to know, in case they came to you with a different story."

There was a meeting of the Merchants' Association that evening—I didn't tell you that I had joined sometime before. As I entered the meeting room, Barlow came to me and told me that Bulder had been to see him, and had told him that I was interested in his proposition but he felt that Barlow would be the better man for them to work with.

Barlow brought the matter of trading stamps up for discussion at the meeting, and it was decided that no member of the association should handle them.

"What would we do if some merchants in the town, who are not members of the association, should take them on?" I asked.

I saw a twinkle in Barlow's eye, for he knew I was thinking of Stigler, who was not a member of the organization.

"I should think," said Wimple, who was the president, "that we had better not try to cross that bridge until we come to it. The leading merchants belong to the association, and I question very much whether the fact that some small store might handle the stamps would have any effect upon us, one way or the other."

I hoped and believed that we had killed trading stamps so far as our town was concerned, but I determined that, if ever the question was to come up again, through some of the others taking up stamps, I would suggest that idea of Fellows', that we form a trading stamp organization of our own, which the association could run. In other words, the Merchants' Association would be the trading stamp concern, and so we would have any benefits coming from it ourselves.