Burton said no more, but he was not convinced.
A few days later a customer asked for a pound of fifty-cent black bulk tea. Burton found the fifty-cent bin empty. “I’m sorry,” said he, “but we appear to be out of the fifty-cent line. How would this suit?” and he was about to offer another brand when Gardiner, who had overheard the remark, called across the store, “That’s fifty-cent tea in the left-hand bin.”
Now the left-hand bin contained thirty-five cent tea, and Burton knew it.
To refuse to fill the order from the bin indicated would amount to resigning his position, yet he was determined not to take advantage of any customer. For a moment he hesitated. Then he weighed the tea out of the thirty-five cent bin, but he gave the customer a pound and seven ounces.
Under the grocery counter were a number of swinging standards on which sugar and salt barrels were swung in and out as desired. The reserve supply was kept in a warehouse at the back, and on a quiet day it occurred to Burton to bring in a number of barrels and fill all the standards. Gardiner observed him and suggested that the barrels should be left outside until needed. Burton answered that he thought it would be an advantage to have them in; besides, it was damp in the shed, and the sugar showed some disposition to cake, while the salt became very hard.
“Yes,” admitted Gardiner, “but it will weigh two per cent. more as it is than after it stands in here for a week, and we handle sugar on less than five per cent.”
In selling a gallon of coal oil Burton discovered that the oil pump brought rather less than a gallon at a stroke. He reported the matter, thinking the pump needed repairing.
“How much do you estimate it is running short?” asked his employer.
“But surely you don’t mean to short-measure our customers? When we sell a gallon, we sell a gallon, do we not?”
“Theoretically, yes. But some things do not work out in practice quite the same as in theory. Look here, Burton,” and Gardiner’s voice took on a serious tone, “I have sold coal oil for ten years, for myself and others, and in all that time I have never opened a barrel that gave the merchant full measure. If he gets off with a ten per cent. loss he can consider himself lucky. I have seen barrels that were quite empty, yet we had to pay for full measurement. It’s all very well to have principles and theories, but what are you to do when you are face to face with such conditions?”