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Show DRUMMER'S SHREWD TRICK. Had a Confederate Arrested . For Stealing Shoes. "Traveling salesmen as a class are a wide-awake set of men," observed the retired drummer. "But I think the best I ever met was old Tom Elwood, who. has long since set out on the trip no traveling man ever returns from. "One year Tom, who was then traveling travel-ing for a shoe manufacturing concern, was sent to the Pacific coast. The trip was a sort of experiment, the firm being anxious to introduce an entirely new line of goods in that part of the country. . When Tom reached the ter-i ter-i ritory he found that he was up against the hardest kind of proposition. Retailers Retail-ers had all the shoes they cared for, and, in addition, some eastern firms had loaded up that section of the country with an inferior lot of goods, and buyers- consequently were especially shy about trying any new eastern styles. Tom couldn't get an order. Most men would have given up about that time, but Tom simply set his wits to work. "One morning the local papers came out with an account of the arrest of a man, a stranger, on a charge of stealing steal-ing some of Tom Elwood's samples of shoes. Instead of. denying his guilt the prisoner pleaded for mercy. He was a New Yorker, he said, and had tried in vain to buy a pair of that. particular style of shoes. A man who had once 1 worn that kind would never be content with any other. He happened to see Tom's samples in the hotel, and ac-' tually felt forced to steal. "It was a decidediy novel case, and every paper in town ran a long story about it. At first Tom pretended to be very stern. He paid his shoes were continually con-tinually being stolen, aj he meant to put a stop to it. In the end, however, he relented and didn't press the case. "Sell hi." shoes? Every shoe dealer in that city bought a full supply, for the story of the arrest and the prisoner's prison-er's subsequent plea made an advertisement adver-tisement which couldn't have been purchased pur-chased with money. It was copied in the papers of other coast towns, and the result was that Tom Elwood made a record trip. "Of course the arrest and subsequent plea of the shoe thief was all a trick which no one except Tom Elwood would have thought) of. In these days of combines they don't send out the class of men they did In the old times, when every house was independent of all the others and fighting with tooth and nail for fhe trade." And the retired re-tired drummer sighed pensively as he ordered another highball. |