"You know, Jackdaw," said Roger (when I was at school the boys all called me Jackdaw; one reason I suppose was that I was so dark and my first name was Dawson), "it is some months since the New England Hardware people hired me and sent me to Hartford as assistant in their store there. After I had been with them for a month, they shifted me to their Providence store for a month as assistant manager. From there I was sent out as traveling inspector, and spent two months in visiting each of the stores and spending a day or two at each one. Then I was called to New York--as you know, they have their head office there--and was coached in methods of handling the records which they required store managers to send in to the office. "Not only did they tell me what records had to be made out, and how they had to be made out, but they showed me what happened to them when they reached the New York office, and also explained very clearly the need for all those records. "I learned more about business, Jackdaw, in those six months than I ever knew before. They didn't just tell me what to do, but they told me why it had to be done. Every question that I asked them about running a store they answered for me. No trouble seemed too great for them to take, if it was going to help me to understand how they did business. I thought they were telling me altogether too much; they were telling the secrets of the conduct of the business; but Mr. Marcosson (he's a weird combination--a Scotchman with a sense of humor)--Mr. Marcosson is the general sales manager--he said that I couldn't be any use to them, unless I knew all about the business; what the goods would cost me in the store, how much profit I ought to make, how much turn-over I ought to get, and Oh! it would take me a month to tell you all the facts they gave me. "One thing has stuck out clearly in my mind from this training, and that is, that I can do my work for them much better than would have been possible if I had been working under an ordinary store proprietor. I know _why_ things should be done. There's real horse sense at the back of every move they take. They don't guess at things. They find out. If you were to ask me what accounts for the big success of chain-store organizations I should say that it is that the chain-store organization _knows_ what it is doing, while the ordinary retailer _guesses_ at what he is doing. For instance, they are looking for towns for two men who are going through the same training that I went through--" "Do you mean to tell me, Roger," I broke in, "that they spent six months' time in training you, when you might leave them at any minute?"