286 The Psychology of the Business Man 



tenant by simply exposing an imitation 'Tor Rent" sign, 

 freshens up the decrepit house front with a trifle of paint and 

 a few shingles, he is not disappointed in his reasoning that 

 this slight improvement will lead some house-seeker to the 

 reasoned illusion that the whole house has been renovated or 

 cared for. The fashionable city grocer reasons that he can 

 hold the summer trade of his exodus host of customers to the 

 neighboring summer resort by starting a branch store within 

 their telephone and delivery limits. Of course his reasoned 

 success is followed 1:)y many imitators, just as the success of 

 the reasoned idea of attracting an enlarged public thru the 

 mazes of a big department store by perching a dainty restaur 

 ant up across the furniture and china floor was followed by 

 less original competitors. Is it possible now, among the 

 hoard of imitators, to find the original reasoner who originated 

 the brilliant advertising imposition of odd-figure prices, by 

 which advantage is taken of the almost irresistible illusion that 

 99 cents is quite a ways off from a whole dollar and the infer- 

 ence that 32 cents must mean close figuring on profits, when 

 the fact is that the 32 cent article could be bought at the old 

 reliable store for an even quarter? The idea occurs to an old 

 brick-teamster of making iron tongs which will pick up a good 

 arm load of nine bricks, saving back, muscles, and time, in un- 

 loading bricks from a car to a wagon ; reasoning out thus an 

 artificial, large and sure hand as a betterment on the customary 

 laborious and wasteful carrying or pitching of bricks from 

 hands to hands. The imitator brick man, on seeing this ''good 

 scheme," and finding it not patented, naturally asks, in his 

 reasoning, where the discoverer got them made and how much 

 they cost. But if, on getting the tongs thus duplicated, the im- 

 itator reasons that tongs which seem to work effectively in 

 unloading cars will be also effective in unloading from the 

 wagon or loading from the kiln, such expectations will be dis- 

 appointed. 



The fresh college graduate, whose wealthy father has just 

 died, is immediately approached with all sorts of business 

 propositions on the reasoned expectation that he will be more 

 easily influenced in favor of new schemes than the experienced 

 paternal accumulator of his inherited money. The arguments 

 for the visible typewriters and the distributed life insurance 

 surplus are met by the counter arguments that an experienced 



