"_That's_ all right, Mr. Black, I was only joking. Glad to talk the matter over with _any_ friend of yours." I don't know why it was, but I seemed from that moment to feel a distrust of him. I had rather liked him before. But now he seemed to me too suave, too--oh, too fat and easy about it. Well, we went into my little office and I introduced him to Fellows. "Our mutual friend, Mr. Black," said Bulder with a smile, "wants me to talk over with you both the _splendid_ possibilities of his store through the Garter Trading Stamps. _Good idea._ It shows he is cautious and has good judgment." "Mr. Black is quite a busy man, you know, Mr. Bulder," Fellows replied, "and perhaps don't have time enough always to think over every angle of a proposition; so he very wisely believes in talking things over and getting an outside viewpoint. Mr. Black can analyze these problems himself just as well as you or I can; but he believes in conserving his time and energies as much as he can." All this preliminary by-play interested and amused me. But then the real battle began. Imagine those two--that big, burly, good-natured, somewhat bulldozing Bulder, and the shrewd, courteous New Englander, Fellows; Bulder with his heavy, sledge-hammer methods,--the bludgeon method, you might call it,--and Fellows with his keen, sharp, rapier methods. Bulder realized at once that Fellows was strongly against the stamps, and that it was going to be a battle of wits and logic. I had better confess that my sporting blood was roused, and I had decided that the fellow who won the argument would have me on his side. "What do you know about the company?" I asked Fellows, so as to get things started. "Not a thing," he said, "but I am sure that that is a matter of minor importance; for Mr. Bulder is too big a business man to connect himself with an organization that is not thoroughly sound." Very neatly put!--and yet I could see that, even if the trading stamp proposition won, Bulder would still have to prove that his company was financially and morally sound. How I wish I could write down in full detail all that was said by both of them, but I can't remember it all. Bulder started in with a few heavy blows by stating that the Garter trading stamps gave the merchant who handled them a decided advantage over his competitors; for their splendid premium catalog, their numerous supply stations, the fact that they would let me have a set of representative premiums for window display, the excellent line of advertising matter which he said was part of the service which I bought from them at the time I bought their stamps. . . . "You _quite_ understand, Mr. Black," he said laboriously, "that you are not buying _just_ trading stamps from us, or trading tokens as we prefer to call them, but you are buying a merchandising service--you are buying _all_ the selling ideas and helps which we can give you, besides the _splendid_ backing which the name of Garter stamps gives you.