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America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat-Part7_TingFang Wu(1842-1922)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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and transacts business with them. In all official departments in Washington



scores of telephones are provided; even the secretary of the department

and the chief of the bureau give orders by telephone.



It goes without saying that this means of communication

is also found in the home of almost every well-to-do family.



The invention of a telephone is a great blessing to mankind;

it enables friends to talk to each other at a distance without the trouble



of calling.* Sweethearts can exchange their sweet nothings,

and even proposals of marriage have been made and accepted



through the telephone. However, one is subjected to frequent annoyances

from wrong connections at the Central Office, and sometimes



grave errors are made. Once, through a serious blunder,

or a mischievous joke, I lost a dinner in my Legation in Washington.



My valet received a telephone message from a lady friend

inviting me to dine at her house. I gladly accepted the invitation,



and at the appointed time drove to her home, only to find

that there was no dinner-party on, and that I should have to go hungry.



--

* "To call" in the sense of "to visit". -- A. R. L., 1996.



--

With some trades, in order to create a new market,



commercial travellers or "drummers" give their goods away for nothing.

Experience has proved that what they lose at the start they recover



in the course of time, receiving in additiontriple or tenfold more business

than the cost of the original outlay. These commercial agents travel



through all sections of the country to solicit business;

they call upon those who can give them orders; they look up those



who are engaged in similar businesses to their own,

and, if they are retailers, they invite their orders, or ask them



to become sub-agents. These gentlemen practically live on the trains:

they eat, sleep, and do their business while travelling.



One of them told me that in one month he had covered 38,000 miles,

and that he had not been back to his firm for three months.



There is no doubt that the American people are active, strenuous workers.

They will willingly go any distance, and undertake any journey,



however arduous, if it promises business; they seem to be always on the go,

and they are prepared to start anywhere at a moment's notice.



An American who called on me a short time ago in Shanghai

told me that when he left his house one morning at New York,



he had not the slightest notion he was going to undertake

a long journey that day; but that when he got to his office



his boss asked him if he would go to China on a certain commission.

He accepted the responsibility at once and telephoned to his wife



to pack up his things. Two hours later he was on a train

bound for San Francisco where he boarded a steamer for China.



The same gentleman told me that this trip was his second visit to China

within a few months.



American salesmen are clever and capable, and well know how to recommend

whatever they have to sell. You walk into a store just to look around;



there may be nothing that you want, but the adroit manner

in which the salesman talks, and the way in which he explains



the good points of every article at which you look,

makes it extremely difficult for you to leave the store



without making some purchases. Salesmen and commercial travellers

in the United States have certainly learned the art of speaking.



I once, however, met a remarkableexception to this rule

in the person of an American gentleman who was singularly lacking in tact;



he was in China with the intention of obtaining a concession,

and he had nearly accomplished his object when he spoilt everything



by his blunt speech. He said he had not come to China

for any philanthropic purposes, but that he was in the country to make money.






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