Now all this kind of thing was planked sirloin for the Salesmen of Fairman. They shared in the profits of their Concern and didn’t have to knock down Bus Fares any more in their expense books, and so they were full of joy and jump.
They got after the disgruntled Customers of Grabit like bees after blossoms and did not exactly have to shoot up the place to scare any of them away from their old connections.
Grabit’s Salesmen were drawing down their good old $100 a month salary, and turning in vouchers for street-car fares, and so when they ran up against the Order Baggers of Fairman they were able to put up about as strong a rebuttal as a girls’ debating society.
Each succeeding season saw a new addition to the Fairman works, until forty acres had been brought under roof and the town had been made a regular stop for the Fast Express. Grabit noted every progressive step with increasing pains in the pit of the stomach, but not to be outdone, he revolutionized things himself by installing a new factory whistle.
Statements of the local banks showed steady increases in the deposits of Fairman’s workers. Neat little brick homes with phonographs in the parlors sprouted all over the town and made business good for the butcher, the baker, and the electric light and power company.
Men with long hair and short hair and no hair to speak of, came from far and near and from Vedersburg, Indiana, to find out how Fairman did it, and to get nose-close to the system in actual operation.
Certain yard-stick philanthropists questioned the Ultimate Good of it all, and there were many sincere and hard-working Business Men clearing all the way from $1,000 to $5,000 a year in their own business, who called Fairman “an industrial accident” and believed down back of their little cramped undershirts that such a thing as an accidentally successful man could actually be.
Recapitulation: Fairman became one slashing, sensational success no matter how you looked at the question—whether altruistically, practically, or through a knot-hole.
As for Grabit, he sits today at his dusty little desk, fingering his penny Ledger and absentmindedly feeling around in his whiskers betimes for a wild hair or two. Listlessly he turns the ledger pages and counts the tombstones, and in gloomy speculation asks himself why all those old Customers went over to the Competish,