Still in Its Paper

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as the tradition demands. Back in the old town, where two umbrella makers set out to keep the goodwill of the same six shops.

Two umbrella makers in one street, the same oiled silk and the same whalebone.
The same six shops to supply, the same price by the dozen.
One sent each shopkeeper a two pound umbrella at Christmas, and was thanked warmly.
One sent a card, and a paper of spare ferrules with every order he carried in.
By the third autumn the generous man had two shops left, and could not tell you why.
Both men gave. So what decides whether a gift lands as a gift?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two umbrella makers, in a town I have never named. A back shop each, up a yard off the main street, smelling of varnish and hot glue and the sweetness of oiled silk. Whalebone ribs bundled like kindling, cane handles in a barrel, a tray of brass ferrules a man puts his hand into without looking. October rain on the skylight, which for an umbrella maker is the sound of money.

Neither sold much over his own counter. The trade went through six shops: four drapers, a haberdasher, and the tobacconist by the coach office. Both makers charged the same and delivered on the same days, and both knew their living rested on six men choosing, season after season, to keep their goods in the window.

The first umbrella maker was not a calculating man. He liked the six shopkeepers and wanted them to know it. So in the December of the first year he made six umbrellas of his best silk, with carved horn handles and a gilt collar, the sort he would have made for a bishop, and carried one to each shop himself. Twelve pounds in all, the better part of a good fortnight's takings. He was thanked warmly every time.

Here is what became of the six umbrellas. Two were given to relations, one was sold, and three sat in back rooms in their paper, since an umbrella with a gilt collar is not a thing a draper carries about in the rain. And here is what became of the goodwill. In the March his silk came in dearer and he put threepence on the dozen. Not one of the six argued with him, which he took for agreement. In the autumn a maker from the next town called with a cheaper gingham umbrella. Four of the six took him on, two dropping the first maker altogether, all of it by note rather than face to face.

The second umbrella maker gave away a good deal more than twelve pounds over those three years, and nobody ever thanked him with both hands. With every order he carried in spare ferrules, rivets and a yard of binding, so a shop could mend a loose tip over the counter while the customer waited. He recovered a shopkeeper's own umbrella and put it on no bill. He showed the tobacconist's boy how to set a sprung rib. At Christmas he sent a card, written by hand, and nothing else.

Every one of those kindnesses could be settled by the man who received it. A thank you did it. The next ordinary order did it. And because nobody was in his debt, they spoke to him like tradesmen. When his silk went up in the March, the haberdasher told him flatly that threepence was too much, and they argued it down to twopence over a cup of tea. By the third autumn he had all six shops.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

A kindness is remembered as a kindness only while the receiver can repay it, and above that line it is remembered as a debt, which people discharge by getting away from the lender. The instinct to return a favour is one of the strongest things in trade, and the trouble is that it does not switch itself off when the favour is too large to return.

Put yourself in the back room with the gilt collar. You did not ask for it, you cannot use it comfortably, you cannot send it back without insult, and you cannot match it, because you are a draper and he supplies you. So you carry a small unsettled account every time he comes through the door, and it makes the ordinary business of trade awkward: beating him down on the dozen, saying the last batch was poorly finished, saying no. A man who cannot bargain with you has no comfortable way of staying. He has only a comfortable way of leaving.

That is why the silence about the threepence was not agreement. It was the sound of men who had been made unable to object, and it is worth remembering the next time a delighted customer leaves you without a word.

The large gift has a second edge, and it cuts the giver. A present big enough to look as though it might be buying a decision invites the receiver to ask whether he is a man who can be bought, and the cheapest way out of that question is to decide the gift was calculating. The kindness that works is given with no ask anywhere near it, and size is a loud way of announcing that an ask is coming.

Two cautions. First, the measure is not what the gift cost you but what the receiver believes he must do to be even, and the two can differ wildly. Twenty minutes teaching a shop boy to set a rib may cost you more in lost work than a bottle of port, and yet obliges nobody, because it reads as your trade rather than your money. Anything resembling cash obliges most of all. Judge the convention of your trade too: where every supplier sends a hamper, the hamper is furniture and nobody counts it. Second, small is not the same as mean. An obviously cheap gift tells a man what you think the relationship is worth, and a kindness given once and dropped is not small but stopped. Give nothing at all in the week a man is choosing between you and a rival, since a present then is not a kindness but a problem you have handed him, much as happens when money and friendship are put in the same room.

Three questions, and the first wants doing before Friday:

1. What would they have to do to feel even? Take the most generous thing you do for a customer and answer honestly. If it is anything beyond a word of thanks or the next ordinary order, the gift is too big. Cut it until the answer is a thank you.
2. Could this customer refuse your next quotation without awkwardness? Ask it of your best ten by name. Anybody you cannot picture saying a comfortable no is somebody you are slowly losing, and the cure is a level account rather than more generosity.
3. What could you give that makes them better at their own work? Spares, a method, a figure out of your own books, twenty minutes with their new lad. These oblige almost nothing, because they read as competence rather than largesse.

The Answer to the Riddle

So what decides whether a gift lands as a gift? Not its cost, and not your intention. Only whether the man receiving it has an easy way to settle up. Six men could answer a paper of ferrules with a nod, so they stayed and said what they thought. Six men could not answer a two pound umbrella at all, so they put it in the back room and left by note. The first maker was not punished for being generous. He was punished for being generous in a currency his customers could not pay him back in.

The verse:

A gift a man can answer with a word will warm him all the year,
A gift he cannot answer sits unopened on the shelf,
The first he pays you back in custom, gladly, at his ease,
The second he pays off by taking all his trade elsewhere.

Until next time. Go and name the most generous thing you do for a customer, work out what they would have to do to feel even with you, and cut it tonight until the answer is a thank you.

P.S. The law runs the other way too, and few traders use it. A man who does you a small favour comes away liking you better rather than worse, because he must explain to himself why he bothered, and the handiest explanation is that he thinks well of you. So when a customer sends you work, do not rush to cancel the obligation with a present. Thank them, repay it small, then ask one more small thing of them. It is the deep accounts, running one way only, that quietly end contracts and friendships alike.

Also in the archive: The Free Guide, Who Sent You and Any Figure He Liked.