"And we want your empty room next door."
"Wa-al—I dunno!" returned the man, finding the matter suddenly serious, when it was brought so close home to him.
"Of course, we expect to pay for it. Only we'd like to have you cut the rent in two for the first three months," said Janice, quickly.
"Say! that might be all right," the druggist observed, more briskly. "But I don't know about all these harum-scarums collecting around this corner. I have been glad heretofore that they have hung around Pringle's, or Joe Henderson's, or the hotel, instead of up here. They've been up to all sorts of mischief."
"If they don't behave reasonably they'll lose the reading-room. Of course that will be understood," said Janice.
"You can't trust some of 'em," growled the druggist. "Never!"
"We'll make those who want the reading-room make the mischievous ones behave," laughed Janice.
"Well," agreed the druggist, "we'll try it. Three dollars a month for three months; then six dollars. I can afford no more."
"So much for so much!" whispered Janice, when she came away from the store. "At least, it's a beginning."
But it was a very small beginning, as she soon began to realize. She had no money to give toward the project herself, and it was very hard to beg from some people, even for a good cause.