That evening, in Jack’s room, they tried to figure their profits. They had taken in in the two days exactly seventeen dollars and forty-four cents. Since, however, they had not been able to enter each sale as made, it was difficult to arrive at the desired result. They knew that on each morning or afternoon paper they made a profit of one cent, that on each half-pound box of candy they made eight cents, that magazines netted from four to six cents, and that cigars, cigarettes, and tobacco sold for from ten to twenty-five per cent. above cost. After much figuring they came to the conclusion that their profits were represented by about one-quarter of the amount taken in, or practically four dollars and thirty cents.
“And at that rate,” said Joe, “we ought to make a monthly profit of about one hundred and twelve dollars!”
Jack stared unbelievingly. Then his face fell. “But we’ve got to pay the rent out of that,” he mourned.
Joe laughed. “You’re getting to be a regular Shylock, old man! The rent is only eighteen and that leaves us ninety-four. And besides that we haven’t to pay any this month.”
Jack brightened again. “That makes forty-seven dollars a month for each of us, doesn’t it? And that’s nearly twelve dollars a week! Joey, we’ll be millionaires before we know it!”
“Well, it pays better than carrying that newspaper route! Another thing, Jack; there’s no reason why we shouldn’t do better as time goes on. We can keep other things, you know, like post-cards and—Look here, why not get a good line of Amesville views?”
“Views? What sort of views?”
“Why, you know; the City Hall and First Presbyterian Church and the Adams Building, of course, and City Park and all the rest of the show places. Have them made into post-cards, I mean. There’s a firm in Detroit that’ll print them for us, and they don’t cost much of anything.”
“Sounds all right. I guess there are lots of things we could sell that we haven’t thought of yet.”
“There’s one thing I’d like to do,” said Joe thoughtfully, “and that’s have a special brand of cigars made for us. That is, we don’t have them made for us exactly. We just select a good brand and then the factory puts a special label on them. See what I mean? ‘Adams Building Perfecto’ or something like that. If we got a real good quality, Jack, and sort of pushed it we might get quite a trade. As far as I can see there’s no reason why we should depend on the folks in the building for our trade. If we carry things people want they will come in from outside for them. It’s just as easy to drop into the Adams Building lobby as it is to go into a regular store. We might run an advertisement in the paper after we get ahead a bit. ‘Try the Adams Building Perfecto, the best ten-cent smoke in the city. Sold at the Adams Building News-Stand.’”