"Well, it's like this, Fisheye. Mr. Welborn could go right on training these bruins and peddle them through an ad in Billboard for a sure two hundred smackers, surely by Thanksgiving—"
"Two hundred nothin's," retorted the wary Fisheye, who was not to let a fancy price go by without protest. "Thar's no bar in the world wuth a hundred dollars. Why up in the Yallerstone, they offer to give 'em away!"
"Sure they do, or did last year. They are the old mangy bears that bother tourists, Jesse James bears, that they want to get rid of. But they wouldn't sell you a cub for love or money. Bears are scarce this year. They hint of a bear famine up there.
"And anyhow, you didn't let me finish. Why if you owned these bears and had 'em climbing an injun ladder right up to their perch in the animal act, had 'em dancing, turning somersaults, you would ask a half grand for them and never bat an eye. They would be worth it, and you know it. But rather than go through the work of getting them ready, Mr. Welborn is willing to take an even hundred for the two. Better still, he'll let you make a note for the hundred due in ninety days—or say Christmas. By that time you've got the bears sold and your note paid, and jingling the difference."
Fisheye was squinting through the slats. "I wish we had 'em out whar a man could see what he's buying."
"Haven't you got an empty cage where we could turn them out in the daylight?" asked the sales manager.
"Shore I have. I jist got pie Rip's cage all cleaned out an ready fer what come."
"Well, get it open. Cut loose the trailer, Mr. Welborn, and we will back it in by hand. Here, Happy, you and Joe help push this trailer in to where Fisheye shows you. These cubs need initiating anyhow."
The trailer was unhooked and carefully backed in through a passage laid out by the versatile Fisheye. A door was opened in one of the unplaced cages and the little bears pushed out into a new world. They scrambled to a far corner, faced about, and waited for the next move.
"There they are," cried the midget enthusiastically, "black as midnight, fat as butterballs and ready for work." To be sure, the little salesman could not see up to the level of the cage floor, but his sales talk never ceased. "How much am I offered, men," he called out in a voice simulating an auctioneer. "How much for the two?"