“Wait,” says he. “Let ’em rummage around and see things all marked plain. Right off they’ll b-begin wantin’ things. And they’ll buy. You see.”
And I did see, Saturday. Those signs and windows got folks all riled up with curiosity, and they began droppin’ in to see what kind of a mess we were making of it. Everybody acted like they thought it was a big joke for Mark and us to be keeping store, but we didn’t care. Mark said that was a good thing, because good-natured folks buy more than folks that don’t think they’ve got something to laugh at.
We had more folks in the store that day than we ever had before, I believe, unless maybe nights before Christmas. We let them joke us all they wanted and didn’t try to sell them things. What we wanted them to do was walk around and sell things to themselves. That was Mark’s idea. You haven’t any idea how people like to poke around by themselves and stick their noses into things. They right down enjoy it. The more they poked the more they bought. It kept Mark and me busy, and we wished a lot of times that Binney and Tallow were there to help us. But we did the best we could, and they were there after supper, of course. We kept open till ten o’clock, and anybody’d have thought we were running a free show to see how the place was jammed.
Mark got the idea of setting a phonograph going, and we had music all the while.
Along about nine o’clock we saw Mr. Long Neck come pussy-footing in. He stood in the door a minute and scowled and then walked all around slow, and slinking, to see what we were doing and how we were doing it. Mark said to let on we didn’t know him, and then went up to him like he thought he was a customer, and says:
“Anythin’ s-s-special you was lookin’ for, sir?”
Mr. Skip was like to have swelled up so he cracked his long neck right there, and the way he woggled his nose back and forth was enough to have put it out of joint.
“You’re a-havin’ that auction Monday just to interfere with my Grand Openin’,” he says, savage-like.
“Was you havin’ a Grand Openin’, Monday?” asks Mark, innocent as could be.
“You know I be,” says Mr. Skip.