"In each town we will operate our business in the name of the local store."
"Won't you have a job in checking up your cash? Do you have your salesman look after that, and bond him?"
"No," he replied. "The local hardware man is responsible for all cash. We get him to receive all the money collected, render us a weekly report, and send us a check for the full amount, with a list of any goods wanted for either the garage or the accessories department."
"Can you get the hardware people to do that?" I asked skeptically.
"We think we can."
"Do you think you can get them to go to all that bother and trouble?"
Charlie smiled and replied: "If they are not willing to go to that bother and trouble we would not want to work with them, for it would show they were 'dead ones.' We believe that live hardware people will be glad to work with us on a proposition such as this, which will be a source of profit to them, as well as increased sales on their regular hardware lines."
"What's the local garage man going to say about this?" I asked.
"It will be a survival of the fittest," he said quietly. "We have not entered into this to put the garage man out of business, but merely to get a garage business for ourselves. We shall not consider him in any way, or go out of our way to fight him. We shall merely mind our own business, and get as much of it to mind as we can."
"When are you going to start here?"