The Sacks He Counted

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as the tradition demands. Back in the old town, behind the slitting mill, two nailmakers shared a yard wall, and the whole difference between them was that one could tell you how his neighbour was doing and the other how he himself had done.

Two nailmakers, the same rod iron from the same slitting mill.
Both struck a sound nail and sold it by the thousand.
One knew, any week, how the man over the wall was faring.
One knew, any week, what he himself had done last August.
The iron cost the same for both men and the coal the same.
Same trade, same anvils, same hands. Which man knew where he stood?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two nailmakers in the town I've never named, their workshops back to back with one wall between, the same trade down to the last article: the little hearth, the treadle bellows, the rod iron drawn out, pointed, cut and headed in the bore, the sacks counted by the thousand for the ironmongers and the builders. A nail sells by count and weight at prices anybody can learn, so a man's advantage lies in making a few more thousand a week without spoiling them.

The first nailer kept his eye on the wall. He knew which mornings the carrier's cart stopped at his neighbour's door, and he counted the sacks that went up on it. He noticed the new sign in red, and the second hearth lit in the back room that spring. When the sacks were many he worked until nine at night and took orders at prices he would have refused in a better week. When the cart did not come he eased off. His year took its shape from whatever the yard over the wall showed him.

The second nailer kept a ruled book. On a Saturday night he wrote three things, in five minutes: the thousands made, the thousands sold, and the money taken. Then, in the January of the second year, he ruled another column down the page and wrote beside each month the figure for the same month the year before.

The page told him things no wall could. August was slack in both years, which meant August was the season and not his failing, and he stopped flogging cheap prices at it. The thousands sold had risen by about a tenth, the money taken by about a twentieth, which could only mean his price had drifted down while he was not watching it, and he put it back up. And the far village, whose large sacks had always felt like good trade, showed two hours of walking for every hour of making, and he gave it to the carrier.

Be fair to the first man. He was not idle and he was not a fool, and knowing a rival's prices is sound trade. But what came over that wall was the part of a business that is kept for being seen, and it came without its causes. The red sign had been painted with borrowed money. The second hearth had been lit for one contractor's order that did not repeat, and was cold again by August. He was reading a man's shop front and calling it his ledger.

Worse, his knowledge gave him nothing to do. A cart at the neighbour's door twice in a week left a feeling and no instruction, while the column in the other man's book left a price to alter and a village to stop walking to. By the fourth year he counted himself as holding his own, with no means of knowing whether he was.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

The only comparison that can instruct you is the one between your own figures and your own figures from the same month a year before, because that is the only comparison in which you know the causes and can go and change them. Every other comparison ends in a feeling about yourself, and a feeling has never told anybody what to do on Monday morning.

Begin with what you are really comparing. On your own side of the wall you know everything: the fortnight you lost, the order that fell through, the day you did nothing useful. On his side you know only what he has chosen to show, so the verdict is settled before you begin, there being no faults on his side to count. It is the error of judging an advertisement by the part of it you can see, which is why you can only copy what you can see the whole of.

The second thing is that the visible part is the cheap part. A sign, a lettered van and a lit window are the quickest things in any trade to buy, and the first bought on credit by a man who wants to look as though he is winning. Your own figures cannot be bought, which is why they are duller and worth more attention.

The third thing makes this practical rather than consoling. A comparison is worth making only if it ends in an action, and your own figures do, because you can trace every one of them. Thousands up and money not up means the price has slipped. Money up and thousands not up means fewer customers paying more, which is pleasant and fragile. And taking the same month a year ago, rather than last month, stops the seasons lying to you, since a man who sets November against August learns nothing but weather. It is the next step after writing the week down honestly, which is why your own account of your own week is honest and wrong.

Two cautions. The first is that none of this argues for knowing nothing about your rivals. Know their prices, what they offer and refuse, how long they make a customer wait, gathered once a quarter and treated as information about the market rather than a report on your worth. What you give up is the weighing, not the looking. The second is to choose your figure before you look at it, and keep it for a year. A measure chosen after the event is chosen because it flatters, and a man with nine measures will find one of them kind every month.

Three questions, for the week in front of you:

1. What is my one figure? The single count that says whether this trade is getting better: jobs done, money taken, enquiries answered. Write it down and leave it alone for twelve months.
2. What was that figure in the same month last year? If you cannot say, your invoices will give it to you in a morning. If there is nothing to look back on, begin the book tonight.
3. What did watching the other yard change last week? Name the thing you did differently because of it. If you can name nothing, you have found something to stop doing.

The Answer to the Riddle

The same rod iron and the same slitting mill, one man knowing how his neighbour fared and the other what he himself had done last August. Which man knew where he stood?

The second. The first knew a great deal about a yard he could not alter and little about his own. The second had the only two figures that can honestly be set side by side, and both were his.

The verse:

The yard across the wall will show you only what it paints,
Its sign in red, its cart at noon, and nothing of its book.
So rule a second column for the month a year gone by,
And take your bearings by the only figures you can read.

Until next time. Go and write down the one figure you will measure this trade by, then find what it stood at in the same month last year.

P.S. One comparison with a rival does earn its keep, and it has nothing to do with size. Ask what he does that you could not, and what you do that he could not. Those two answers are facts about the trade, and they suggest work. The rest is scenery, painted on the side that faces out.

Also in the archive: The Chalk Behind the Door, Forty-One Wells and The Wheelwright's Ruled Book.