The Chair by the Glass

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as the tradition demands. Back in the old town, where the drapers held the sunny side of the market place, two milliners kept shops forty yards apart.

Two milliners in one town, the same straw and the same box of ribbons.
Both asked nine shillings for a trimmed bonnet, and both trimmed well.
Both were civil to every customer who came in at the door.
One gave her whole attention to the woman who had come to buy.
One set a chair beside the long glass and asked the other woman a question.
Which sold the more bonnets, and what was the chair really for?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two milliners, in a town I have never named. Both shops smelled of hot straw and shellac, both kept the ribbons in shallow trays, and both had a long glass by the window. And in that town no woman bought a bonnet by herself. She came with her sister, or her mother, or the neighbour whose taste she trusted, and the second woman stood just inside the door, because there was nowhere to sit.

The first milliner had been taught properly, and her attention went where the money was. She settled the customer at the glass, brought the straws, talked of brim and crown and what the assembly rooms would be wearing in October. Behind her the sister stood with her gloves in her hand and nothing to do.

It never took long. Ten minutes, perhaps twelve, and then from the door: it is very high at the front. Or, more plainly, nine shillings. Be fair to her. She was no spiteful woman, she had been brought along to give an opinion, and a doubt was the only opinion the room had left her. The two would leave saying they would think about it, and often enough they thought about it in the other shop.

The second milliner watched that happen for years before she did anything, and what she did was plain enough to be laughed at. She put in a second chair, half a pace behind the first, set so that both women could see the glass. Then, before she touched a straw, she turned her back on the customer and spoke to the one who was not buying. Would she stand at the door and say how the thing read from six feet, since a woman in a chair sees herself at arm's length, and nobody ever looked at a bonnet from a foot away. Later she held two ribbons against the straw and asked which, and took the answer. The sister had a chair, a task and a verdict of her own: she was the eye at the door, which is the only eye that matters.

She did a second thing, quieter. When a question arose that the customer might not care to answer in company, what she had to spend, or whether last year's bonnet might be made over instead, she walked her to the back counter to look through a drawer of made flowers, and asked it there with her hands busy. She sold more bonnets at the same nine shillings, and fewer came back to be altered. The sisters and the neighbours, who bought nothing at all, told their own streets about her. The first milliner had the better eye for a brim, and would have told you trade was slack in a wet autumn.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

The person who came in with your customer did not come to buy, and will take a part in the business whether you hand them one or not. You may choose which part, in the first minute, at no cost. Leave it to them and they will take the only part on offer to somebody who is neither buying nor selling, which is the part of the critic.

Consider what the standing woman is weighing. Everybody in a room wants a position in it, and the buyer's is settled: she is the one being served. Her companion has none. Praise the bonnet and have it prove a poor one, and she looks a fool. Doubt it and have it prove good, and she was being careful. Doubt is the one contribution that cannot afterwards be shown to have been silly, and you get it from people who meant no harm.

A second thing costs you more than the objections do. Being watched changes what your customer can say to you. Alone, she will tell you she has six shillings and not nine. In company she will not, because her answer is no longer addressed only to you, and you already know that a customer will refuse the option that would say the wrong thing about her. The awkward question gets a polite answer that is not true, and you price the work upon it.

Third, and least noticed: the companion is the court of appeal. Within the fortnight somebody will ask whether it was a good buy, and the person asked will be the one who was there. A companion with no hand in the choosing has nothing invested in defending it, and one lukewarm verdict will bring the bonnet back to your counter. The woman who chose the ribbon has her own name on it.

And there is luck in the arrangement. She is brought along precisely where the buyer does not trust her own judgement, which makes her the person who decides and never met you, arrived on her own two feet, or in this century a voice on a telephone across a kitchen table.

Two cautions. Do not turn the companion into the customer. What you hand over is a narrow question of judgement, how it looks from the door, which of these two, never authority over the purchase. Flatter her into deciding and your customer goes home with a thing she did not choose. The other caution is that not everybody wants a job. Some want a chair and to be left in peace. The test takes a second. Watch whether your customer glances at the other one before she answers you. If she does, that person is in the decision.

Three questions, and the first you can answer tonight:

1. Who came in with your last six customers, and what were they to them? Most trades never write it down and so believe it does not happen. Put the second person in your book.
2. What narrow question can you honestly hand to a bystander? Have it ready before the door opens, and see that it is real and has a consequence, because an invented one is flattery and flattery is detected.
3. Where can you ask the awkward question alone? Name the place: the back counter, the yard, the walk out to the van. Without one, you will go on taking polite answers for true ones.

The Answer to the Riddle

Which sold the more bonnets, and what was the chair really for?

The second milliner, and the chair was not a courtesy. It was a post. A woman given nothing to do in your shop will appoint herself to the only office going, and that office is finding fault, so the second milliner appointed her first, to something useful. The first was not careless. She was correct exactly as she had been taught, and her attention was aimed at one of the two people deciding.

The verse:

The one who came to watch you work
Will find herself a part.
Hand her an honest thing to judge
Before she judges art.

Until next time. Go and write down the one narrow question you will hand to the next person who walks in beside your customer.

P.S. When the second one does object, answer it as though your customer had said it, because in all likelihood she did. The companion is often the buyer's own doubt walking about on separate legs, saying the thing she cannot say without seeming to haggle. It is very high at the front is a question about whether she will look foolish in it. Answer it to them both.

Also in the archive: The Join Over the Door, The Woman Who Works the End and The Cart With the Barrels.