The Ogden Standard

SALESMEN.
(By Walt Mason.)

Throughout the town my wares I holler,
and try to sell a new gold dollar
for 97 cents; in vain, alas, are all my yellings:
in vain I haunt your shops and dwellings,
your woodsheds and your tents.
No man will buy my handsome money:
men seem to think it must be phony,
because I'd sell it cheap; so all day long I seek a market,
display my coin and boost and bark it,
and then break down and weep.
But now comes Neston Newton Neuter,
who deals in dollars made of pewter,
alloyed with lead and tin; he seems to loaf while I am sweating,
and yet men's bundles he is getting,
he rakes the greenbacks in.
One man has got the trick of selling;
he needs to do no frantic yelling
to gather in the plunk: he just leans back, his system sunning,
and all the people come a-running,
to buy his blooming junk.
The other fellow strives and labors
to sell good plunder to his neighbors,
and never gets the kale; no scraps of business can he rake up:
there's something lacking in his make-up,
he cannot make a sale.
—Copyright, 1916.