"Everybody pays on Saturdays, don't they?" I asked.
"Everybody used to, but it is by no means uncommon, now, for factories to pay the help on Thursday and Friday.
"When they've studied this question, they next study the business streets to learn which are the most important.
"The most important to them does not necessarily mean the main street of the town, but the one which offers the greatest number of passersby, who are likely to be customers. For instance, they want to know where the people congregate in the streets in the evening. Do they go past the drug store and past the most popular movie theater? Do the men go through the town on the way home, or can they get home without going through the shopping section?
"Now, some concerns, such as the big chain cigar store people, plan to get the corner which has the greatest number of people passing it. They have tellers stand outside various corners and count the number of people going each way during various hours of the day. But our people do differently," said Roger, with a pride that made me realize that the instruction they had given him had certainly developed in him absolute confidence in his people. "We try to get stores with a reasonable rent just off the main thoroughfares, but so located that we catch as many passersby as possible.
"Now, we are opening in Macey Street, although High and Main are unquestionably our two main thoroughfares here."
Macey Street is a narrow street running from the post-office, which is on Main Street, facing Macey, and connecting with High. On High Street is the theater and two of the moving-picture houses. The railroad station, also, is on High, a little way from Macey.
"Now, on Main Street," said Roger, "are all our business and professional men. Their best way to get home is down Macey into High, either to the depot or to the trolley junction in front of the depot. Thus you see we catch the bulk of the people coming from Main to High and from High to Main. The rent is even less than you pay," he said with a smile, "and yet we have a location which is several times better than yours."
I felt as if I wanted to kick myself when he said that. If I had only known that. I had bought the store, but I had never even thought that I might have gotten a better location than I had.
"Then the next thing we have to consider," said Roger, "is whether or not we are on the right side of the street. Now, you may or may not know it, but the right side of the street is the one which has the greatest amount of shade in the summer. You see, in the heat of the summer, people prefer to walk in the shade, and consequently they take the shady side of the street. In the winter, if there is any snow, it makes the sunny side of the street sloppy, so that people still walk on the shady side."