Apparently nothing concerning Peter Rolls, Sr., and his family was hidden from Mr. Löwenfeld and Miss Seeker, although they claimed no personal acquaintance with the great. Probably, if Win had asked, they could have told how many servants Mrs. Rolls kept and how many cases of champagne her husband ordered in a year. But questions were unnecessary. The subject of a self-made millionaire was a fascinating one to the lately naturalized German.
Peter Rolls, Sr., had emigrated from the north of Ireland as a young boy. He had contrived to buy a few cheap odds and ends likely to attract women buried in the country far from shops. He had somehow known exactly what odds and ends to select. That was genius; and he had coined money as a peddler. In his wandering life he made acquaintance with many tramps and saw how he might make even the lowest useful. After a few years he scraped up enough capital to start a small store in New York, far downtown, where rents were cheap.
Like his peddler's pack, the store was stocked with odds
and ends. But again they were just the right odds and ends, the odds and ends that every one in that neighbourhood wanted and had never been able to obtain under one roof. No article cost less than five cents, none more than a dollar, and it was marvellous what Peter Rolls could afford to sell for a dollar.
"I Can Furnish Your Flat for Ten Dollars. Why? Because I Work with My Own Hands," was Peter Rolls's first advertisement. And the Hands had never lost their cunning since.
He could undersell any other shopkeeper in New York because he got his salesmen for next to nothing. They were a judicious selection from among his friends, the tramps. Any man who could recall enough of his schooling to do a little sum in addition was eligible. He was fed, clothed, tobaccoed, judiciously beered, watched all day while at work, and shut up at night in a fireproof, drink-proof cubicle. The plan proved a brilliant success. The little store downtown became a big one, and grew bigger and bigger, swallowing all the other stores in its block; and it was now ten years since the great Sixth Avenue department store, which could call itself the largest in New York, was opened under the benediction of the Hands.
Winifred had fancied, because of the balm which was making a fortune, that Peter Rolls, Sr., was some sort of a glorified chemist. But Mr. Löwenfeld roared at this idea. The Balm of Gilead was only one of the lucky hits in the drug department, in itself as big as a good-sized provincial store. The Hands sold everything, and though the tramps were long ago dead or abolished, Peter Rolls still undersold every other store in New York. How did he do it?
Well—there were ways. The hands without a capital H might tell, perhaps; but they did not talk much. Peter Rolls never had any difficulty in obtaining or keeping as many of them as he wanted, and could get double the number if he liked.
"Does he still 'work with his own hands?'" quoted Win at last, feeling half guilty, as if she ought not to ask questions about Peter's father behind Peter's back. But the affairs of the Rolls family seemed to be public property. Mr. Löwenfeld and Miss Seeker both laughed.
"I should love," said the latter, "to see Ena Rolls's face if her father did work! She spells their name with an 'e'—R-o-l-l-e-s—and hopes the smart set on Long Island, where their new palace is, won't realize they're the Hands. Isn't it ridiculous? Like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand. She runs her father and mother socially. I guess the old man hardly dares put his nose inside the store, except about once a year; and Ena and the old lady never buy a pin there. As for the young fellow, they say he doesn't bother: hates business and wants to be a philanthropist or something outlandish on his own. I should say to him, if he asked me: 'Charity begins at home.'"