The Book of Courage

Excerpt: ...but now, this sale belongs to the clerk who sent out the sample. Then I won't give you this sample to hunt it up by, said the woman, wishing to see if she could carry her point, and she proceeded to tuck the sample away in her purse. But I know that I have seen it, and my conscience knows it, was the clerk's comment, as he laughingly laid his hand on his heart and turned to look for the other salesman. The purchaser went on to tell thus of the salesman's unerring loyalty to his principles: In a moment he returned. The other clerk was at lunch. What a sigh of relief I gave! 'I will make out the sale and turn it over to him when he comes in,' he said, displaying the shining black folds of the goods I desired. A real estate dealer in a Texas city was once tempted to be false to his principles, just once, when he felt sure a sale depended on it. His prospective customer was a foreigner, who wished the salesman to drink with him after a trip to examine the property on Saturday and then to promise to make an engagement to continue the search next morning. But the business man was opposed to the use of liquor, and he had never done business on Sunday. 116 What was he to do on this occasion? Would it hurt anything if he should make an exception in favor of this customer who could not be expected to understand his scruples? The temptation was acute; but it was conquered. Respectfully but firmly the buyer was told why the salesman could not join him in taking a drink, and why he could not go with him again until Monday morning. The man went away in a rage. Next morning the real estate man saw the foreigner in the hands of a rival. That sale is gone! he thought. When three days more passed without the return of the buyer he decided that he had paid heavily for being true to his better self. But on Thursday evening the foreigner sought the conscientious real estate dealer and surprised him by saying: Those other fellows showed me lots of farms,...