The Answer in the Taproom

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as the tradition demands. Back in the old town what was said of a man's trade at the corn market stood until something louder was said in the same place, a quiet word elsewhere not touching it.

Two brewers in the old town, the same barley and the same well.
In one close August each sent out a cask that turned sour, and each heard of it said out loud in a room full of market men.
One was at the inn by seven and sent two sound casks after the bad one for nothing.
One did the same, then went back to that room on market day and said what had happened.
Same fault, same remedy, same August.
By Christmas, which of the two was held to brew sound beer?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two brewers in the town I've never named, buying barley off the same light land, both brewing a mild ale for the four inns and any house taking a nine gallon cask. Their prices stood within a penny, and neither could have told you why a man should prefer the one beer.

In the third week of that August the weather turned close and stayed close for nine days. Both racked earlier than a hot cellar allows, and both sent out casks that went sour within the fortnight. Neither had been careless by the standards of the trade. Both heard of it on the same market Saturday, from a landlord who said it with a dozen men in the room.

The first brewer heard at four and was at the inn door by seven. He took the cask away, asked no questions, allowed the full price and sent two sound casks round next morning for nothing. It was handsomely done, and beyond that he said nothing to anybody. Beer going off is not a thing a man goes about advertising, and there is a good breeding in that view which I do not sneer at.

The second brewer did the whole of the same, cask away, money allowed, two sound casks in the morning. Then on the next market day, the same men being in the room, he spent about forty words on it where they could hear. He had racked too early in the heat, it was his doing and not the house's cellar, and any cask of his from that week could come back sour or sound and he would allow the whole of it. Then he called at the nine other houses he had delivered to that week, none of which had complained, and said the same at each door.

Two of the nine came back, and the other seven were good beer. The first brewer lost no customer that autumn. What he noticed across the winter was a sentence going about, which was that his beer had gone off in the August. It was not said unkindly. It was simply the only thing that room had ever learned about his business, and nothing had been put beside it since. Of the second brewer what was said was that he had come round himself, and by the spring he had a third inn, which he did not get by brewing the better beer.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

A complaint made in front of other people has to be answered in front of the same people, because the answer is not for the man complaining. He has his remedy already. The room has not.

The landlord came away with his money, two free casks and nothing further to want. The dozen men at the tables came away with a grievance and no ending to it, the ending having been seen to elsewhere. A story that stops in the middle does not wait politely to be finished. It is settled by whoever heard it, out of the one account they were given.

Nor will the complainant mend it for you, which is where a private settlement is trusted too far. To correct the record he must retell his own complaint with the sting pulled out, which makes a poor story and him sound like a man who grumbled about nothing. So he will not contradict it. He will stop telling it, and stopping leaves the last word spoken on the subject the first one.

Here is why a bad August served the second brewer better than a clean name served his rival. What a stranger wants to know is not whether your work ever fails, for he assumes it does, everything does. He wants to know what becomes of him when it fails, and that is the one thing you cannot tell him. Your prices will not show it, nor your best customer's good word, he being the man it never happened to. He can only learn it by watching it happen to somebody else. A failure answered in the open is the one honest demonstration of your conduct under failure you will ever give, and it costs a cask of beer. A sour August accounted for stands higher with him than no trouble at all, where the suspicion he brings you fills the silence instead.

Two cautions. Answering is not arguing. The answer is three things, what happened, what you have done, and what anybody else affected should do, then stop. Dispute his account in front of the room and the room will not referee the quarrel, it will only remember that you were in one. Where you think him mistaken, put the one fact right, once, and take the trouble off him all the same, since a customer will buy the remedy and never the blame. The other caution is to answer in the room the thing was said in and no larger. A complaint brought privately is answered privately and fast, for hauling it into public is a punishment and reads as one.

Three questions, for the week in front of you:

1. Where was the last complaint against me made, and where did I answer it? If it stands where others can read it and the answer went out in a private note, you have satisfied one man and left the account where it was.
2. What can a stranger learn about my conduct when something goes wrong? Look at your trade as he sees it. If every word of it is praise, he learns nothing on the only question he has, and fills the gap himself.
3. Who else is in that week's batch? There is nearly always a batch, a round, a fortnight done the same wrong way. One letter sent before a man finds the fault is worth five sent after.

The Answer to the Riddle

By Christmas, which of the two was held to brew sound beer?

The second, and it was the same beer. Mark that the first brewer was the more generous, inside the hour and out of pocket, and his generosity bought the goodwill of one landlord and nothing else, while the other man's forty words cost nothing and bought the opinion of the room. The remedy is owed to the customer. The account of it is owed to everybody who heard the complaint, and if you give them none they keep the one they have.

The verse:

A grievance is heard by the whole of the room,
the remedy only by one.
Go back to the room where the thing was said
and tell them there what you have done.

Until next time. Go and find the last complaint made against you where others could see it, and answer it there today, in three sentences.

P.S. The rule holds hardest where you can put nothing right, the season being over, the work not of a kind that can be done twice. Men stay silent then, feeling an answer with no remedy is worth nothing. It is worth a good deal. Say what happened, say what you have changed so the next man does not meet it, and offer what you can. An unmended fault honestly accounted for does less harm than a mended one the room never heard the end of.

Also in the archive: Four Sides at the Horse Fair, The Name He Lent and The Last Thing the Room Heard.