“News-stand? Search me! I haven’t heard of any.”
“I should think you’d need one. You must have two or three hundred people in here.”
“Easy! There’s two hundred and eight offices, and some has two or three people in ’em. Course, they ain’t all rented yet, but——”
The signal buzzed and the operator slammed the door and shot out of sight just as another car arrived. Joe made his way out with the throng and hurried homeward, his mind very busy all the way. At supper he was so preoccupied and silent that Aunt Sarah tried to get him to describe his symptoms and watched him depart for Jack’s house with misgivings. Up in the big room on the third floor Joe laid the scheme before his chum. Jack was instantly enthusiastic.
“It’s simply great!” he declared. “How’d you ever think of it? But you’d sell other things besides newspapers, wouldn’t you, Joey?”
“Yes. Cigars, candy, magazines—anything I could. You see, Jack, if folks who work in the building know they can get such things right there they’re pretty sure to deal with me. I ought to sell a lot of cigars——”
“And chewing-gum,” laughed Jack.
“And newspapers, too. And I’d make a specialty of carrying the Cincinnati and Cleveland and Columbus papers, and the Chicago, too; and maybe one of the New York papers. The trouble is, though, that I’d have to have money to start with, and I haven’t got it.”
“That’s so.” Jack’s face fell. “How much would you need?” he asked after a minute.