Scattergood went back to his hardware store and sat down in his reinforced armchair on the piazza. As he sat there young Jim Hands drove up with his girl, alighted, and went into the ice-cream parlor for refreshment. Scattergood studied the rig. It lacked something to give it the final touch of style dear to the country youth.
Scattergood got up, and ambled into his store, returning with a resplendent buggy whip—one with a white silk bow tied above its handle. This he placed in the socket on the dashboard. Then he resumed his chair. Presently Jim emerged with his girl and helped her into the rig. He noticed the whip, took it out of its place, and examined it; swished it through the air to try its excellence.
"Mighty nice gad," said Scattergood.
"Where in tunket did it come from?" asked Jim.
"I stuck it there. Looked to me like a rig sich as your'n needed a good whip to set it off. I jest put it there to see how it looked."
Jim glanced at his girl, scratched the back of his suntanned neck, and felt in his pocket.
"Calc'late I did need a whip," he said. "How much is sich whips fetchin'?"
"I kin give you that one a might lower 'n usual. It'll be two dollars to you, seem's you got sich a purty girl in the buggy."
The girl giggled, Jim flushed, and fished out two one-dollar bills, which he passed over to Scattergood. Then, whip in hand, he drove off with a flourish. Scattergood pocketed the money serenely. It was by methods such as this that he did, in his hardware store, double the business such a store in such a locality normally accounted for. Scattergood's most outstanding quality was that he never let a business opportunity slip—large or small—and that he manufactured for himself fully half of his business opportunities. He had lifted retail salesmanship to the rank of an art.
Again he got up and went inside, where he wrote a letter to a certain wholesale house with whom his account was large. The letter said he had pressing need for half a dozen railroad rails of certain size and weight, and didn't know where to get them, and would the recipient find them and ship them at once.