"Didn't they have any thicker ones?" asked Livingstone.
"Well, of course," assented Barrifield, "it is a trifle thicker than a fine gold watch, but it's a perfect gem in other respects. The manufacturer of it told me he had carried one of them a year, and that it hadn't varied a second in that time."
"Maybe it was stopped," suggested Van Dorn, but Barrifield ignored this libel.
"Every boy will want one of the 'Whole Family' watches," he went on. "We can sell a barrel of them in every town."
"How many of them come in a barrel?" interrupted Livingstone.
Barrifield leaned across the table.
"And I can buy them," he said eagerly, "I can buy them for seventy-five cents! Think of it! Seventy-five cents! A five-dollar watch, given with the finest weekly paper ever offered, for only one dollar a year!"
"How will you do that?" asked Perner.
"That leaves us twenty-five cents for the paper."
"Why, you know, we'll add something for postage and packing, as I said before."