“Well, now, Mr. Smith, you know all about business:  I suppose, if I were to go into a store to buy goods, nineteen men out of twenty would cheat me, if they could; wouldn’t they?”

“No, Sir!” I answered, with a swelling of indignation at the injustice, a mingling of pity for the ignorance, and a foreboding of small benefit from the preaching of a minister of the gospel who knew so little of the world he lived in.  “No, Sir; nineteen men in twenty would not cheat you, if they could; for the best of all reasons,—­it would be dead against their own interest.”

Not a day passes but the question is asked by our youths who are being initiated in the routine of selling goods,—­“Is this honest?  Is that honest?  Is it honest to mark your goods as costing more than they do cost?  Is it honest to ask one man more than you ask another?  Ought not the same price to be named to every buyer?  Isn’t it cheating to get twenty-five per cent. profit?  Can a man sell goods without lying?  Are men compelled to lie and cheat a little in order to earn an honest living?” What is the reason that these questions will keep coming up?  That they can no more be laid than Banquo’s ghost?  Here are some of the reasons.  First, and foremost, multitudes of young men, whose parents followed the plough, the loom, or the anvil, have taken it into their heads, that they will neither dig, hammer, nor ply the shuttle.  To soil their hands with manual labor they cannot abide.  The sphere of commerce looks to their longing eyes a better thing than lying down in green pastures, or than a peaceful life beside still waters, procured by laborious farming, or by any mechanical pursuit.  Clean linen and stylish apparel are inseparably associated in their minds with an easy and elegant life, and so they pour into our cities, and the ranks of the merchants are filled, and over-filled, many times.  Once, the merchant had only to procure an inviting stock, and his goods sold themselves.  He did not go after customers; they came to him; and it was a matter of favor to them to supply their wants.  Now, all that is changed.  There are many more merchants than are needed; buyers are in request; and buyers whose credit is the best, to a very great extent, dictate the prices at which they will buy.  The question is no longer, How large a profit can I get? but, How small a profit shall I accept?  The competition for customers is so fierce that the seller hardly dares ask any profit, for fear his more anxious neighbor will undersell him.  In order to attract customers, one thing after another has been made “a leading article,” a bait to be offered at cost or even less than cost,—­that being oftentimes the condition on which alone the purchaser will make a beginning of buying.

“Jenkins,” cried an anxious seller, “you don’t buy anything of me, and I can sell you as cheap as any.  Here’s a bale of sheetings now, at eight cents, will do you good.”

“How many have you got?”