business enterprise. One may reason with propriety, if a debtor is slow pay, or has little sense of responsibility regarding his obligations, that he is a poor credit risk and not worthy of any special consideration and .that his account is not to be solicited. This is true up to a cer- tain limit. The credit man who would grant a rather large line of credit to such a debtor with the hope of edu- cating him to become a better credit risk, would be very unwise, and he who would refuse such a debtor credit entirely, would also be unwise. It is the credit man’s duty to attempt to strike a happy medium, and to build up a good account for the house. Just as the percentage of losses through bad debts may be too large, so the per- centage of losses due to bad debts may be too small. In other words, the credit man may do the house just as much harm by curtailing sales, as he may by granting credit too freely and by not being able to secure collection of the accounts.
Diplomacy.
A very important asset of the credit man is diplomacy. In fact, he who lacks this quality will find his horizon very limited. To be able to direct the conversation to- wards the proper end to be obtained, to be able to draw from the applicant for credit, his modes and methods of doing business, to learn something of his private life, his character, to tactfully lead him to reveal his personal traits, without causing any offense,—these are prime requi- sites of the credit man.
He should be able to adroitly point out to the applicant
