I realized that I would have to set to and save every penny I could to apply against that note when it came due. There was still a month to get together whatever money I could, but it was going to spoil some selling plans I had wanted to try for the store. Never again, would I endorse a note for any man! I have certainly learned my lesson. But why, oh why, couldn't I have profited by other people's experience instead of having to learn business methods by my own? The tuition fee in the school of experience is mighty high.
Now, I must tell you the dreadful scare we had a few nights later. At eleven-thirty at night—just as I was impatiently walking the floor of our little sitting-room, while the doctor was upstairs with Betty, I heard the fire engine dash past the end of the street. At the same time I saw a huge tongue of flame shoot above the house, with the accompaniment of a dull roar. The flame was in the direction of my store, and, of course, my first thought was that my store had caught fire again—or that Stigler had fired it.
For the last few months Stigler had been acting queerly. He used to stand across the road from my store and nervously bite his finger nails. Then he would unconsciously rub his forehead in a slow methodical way. After a time he would return to his own store, would gaze into the windows and mutter incoherently to himself. I felt that Stigler had for some time been on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Business had been going very badly with him, I knew, because a jobbing house from which I bought had stopped his credit.
During the previous three weeks he had been selling goods at ridiculous prices. Not satisfied with normal cuts, he in many cases had sold goods below cost. It had worried me, and I had told Barlow, who had said to let him alone, as a price cutter was a hog and would eventually finish by cutting his own business throat, and he had advised me to keep clear of Stigler, as he (Stigler) attributed all his misfortunes to my competition—and he hadn't forgiven me for winning Betty.
Well, to get back to that fatal night. I saw the nurse in the corridor, so I told her that I would be home again in a few minutes, and not to tell Mrs. Black that there was a fire. I then grabbed my hat and ran down the street.
I found it was not my store, but Stigler's. It was a most horrible, but fascinating, sight. The body of the store was blazing like a furnace. The bright red glow from it shone across the road and its light, dancing upon the faces of the crowd watching the fire, made an eerie sight. Little tongues of fire were already shooting out of the upstairs windows, while one side of the roof was well alight. Little running streams of flame kept playing backwards and forwards across it, and, even while I watched, there was another roar and part of the roof collapsed.
I knew the fireman who was holding the horses' heads. "Some fire," I said to him in an undertone.
"You bet it is," he replied curtly; "the beggar set it himself."
"Nonsense!" I said incredulously.
"The place has been saturated with gasoline. A fire couldn't catch like that in so brief a time. It will be a pretty serious matter for Stigler, believe me."