I asked Jim if we ought not to take stock together, and he said, "Sure, if you want to;" but I found that he had an exact stock-keeping system, and Jim suggested that we pick out about a dozen items and just check those up—"for," said he, "what's the use of checking up fifty cents' worth of this and thirty cents' worth of that? Your time is too valuable for that."
I agreed with him, for I couldn't afford to waste my time now that I was the owner of a store.
Betty asked me that night if I had had a lawyer to go over the thing with me, but I laughed at her and said, "I don't want a lawyer for a little deal like this between Jim and me." I told her it would have been almost an insult to have suggested that I wanted a lawyer. She shook her head sadly and said something about a man who was his own lawyer having a fool for a client—which I thought was not at all called for!
Before going to bed, I figured out what the store should be worth to me. Jim had told me he turned over his stock about three times a year, and that he made about 10 per cent. clear profit. Three times $9460.00 would be $28,380.00; and if he made 10 per cent., clear profit, that would be $2838.00 a year—call it $3000.00 a year. That was $60.00 a week! Gee!—some jump from what I was getting at Barlow's! I thought how easy it was to make money when you had some to start with! Here I had been working my head off for a year and a half and getting only $10.00 a week, and now I would be making $60.00. I decided to ask Betty to—oh, well, I'd wait a month or two until I saw if it worked out just like that. Better be on the safe side!
CHAPTER II
READY TO GO AHEAD
Mother had a talk with me about the store, in the morning and asked me to try to get my money back from Jim. She said she had never liked Jim, and that he was a bit careless in his transactions. When mother said anybody was careless in their transactions, she meant he was a crook, but I knew Jim better than that, and I told her so. Mother said she didn't want me to lose my money as soon as I'd got it.
I was all the Mater had, for Dad had died a few years before. Fortunately, his life was well insured and mother had enough to live on. I told her I was a young progressive, but I was not taking any chances with anything that affected her, so there was no need for her to worry.
I told Barlow that I'd have to leave him that day because I had bought out Jim Simpson's store and was to start in on the following Monday. He looked at me for a minute, and said:
"Have you paid him for it yet?"