“What ever’s he goin’ to Sunfield for?” says I, beginning to get interested.
“I don’t really know exact, but from things he’s said I guess he’s calc’latin’ on startin’ up another five-and-ten-cent store there. There’s a feller that wants to sell out, as near as I kin git the facts, and Mr. Skip is hankerin’ to buy.”
Well, sir, what do you think of that? It looked like we were bound to run up against this Skip man wherever we went and whatever we did. Now he was trying to buy the same stock of goods Mark Tidd had his heart set on buying.
I couldn’t see what Mark wanted of that stock, for we had all we could look after, and, anyhow, we didn’t have any thousand dollars to spend for it. It looked like a crazy notion to me, but just the minute I heard Skip was after it I felt different about it. I wanted to get there first. I was going to help Mark Tidd all I could. It didn’t matter what we did with that store when we got it, I was for getting it so Skip couldn’t. Maybe that was a mean way to feel—but Skip was the kind of man that makes you feel mean.
I got rid of Mr. Perfume-smelling Clerk as soon as I could and hurried up to Mark Tidd’s. He and Zadok were still at the popcorn. I calculate that between them they’d eaten more of it than any two folks ever ate before in one afternoon. I didn’t wait to knock, but went busting right in.
“Skip’s after it,” says I.
“After what?” says Mark.
“The Sunfield five-and-ten-cent store,” says I.
“Oh!” says Mark, and he grinned at Zadok. “D-don’t get excited, Plunk.”
“Excited,” says I. “We got to beat him, hain’t we?”