If I were Binks the baker, I’d tidy up my store; I would not have an
acre of dust upon the floor. I’d be a skilled adjuster and make things
please the eyes; I’d take a feather duster and clean the pumpkin pies.
I’d keep the doorknob shining, and polish up the glass, and never sit
repining, and never say, “Alas!”
If I were Binks the baker, I’d have a cheerful heart, as always should
the maker of bread and pie and tart; for looking sad and grewsome will
never bring the trade of folks who want to chew some doughnuts and
marmalade. When I go blowing money I always seek the store whose boss is
gay and sunny, with gladness bubbling o’er; and when I chance to enter a
bakery whose chief is roaring like a stentor about his woe and grief,
his bellowings confound me, I do not spend a yen; I merely glance around
me, and hustle out again.
If I were Binks the baker, and had a grouch on hand, I’d surely try to
shake her, and smile to beat the band. For no one wants to harken to
tales of woe and strife, to hear of clouds that darken a merchant’s
weary life. For customers, have troubles, like you, through all their
years; and when they spend their rubles they are not buying tears.
They’ll like you all the better, you and your cakes and jam, if you are
not a fretter, a kicker and a clam.
If I were Bakes, the binker—my wires are crossed, I swow—I’d sell the
pie and sinker with calm, unclouded brow. No grumblings wild and woolly
would from my larynx slide; I’d swear that things were bully, and seven
meters wide. Then folks would all admire me, and seek me in my den, and
load me till they’d tire me, with kopecks, taels, and yen.
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