“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Doc. “I like you somehow, you’re the kind of person who will boost my business in the neighborhood, so I’ll just let you have this set for a hundred and nine dollars and fifty cents, which, you can see, is dirt cheap.”
The girl looked a little surprised.
“Why,” she stammered, in patent confusion, “I couldn’t think of paying that much for a set; fifty dollars would be my limit.”
Doc looked pained and took out a corn cob pipe and lit it before replying.
“Well,” he said, at last, “I’d be losing quite a bit if I let you have it that cheap; but, as I said before, once in a while I make an ‘advertising sale,’ that is, I let some one have a set real cheap because I think he’s the sort of person who will boost my business in the neighborhood. Now, if you’ll promise not to tell any one how much you paid for this set I’ll split the difference between your price and mine with you, making the total cost of this excellent set, to you, and to you only, seventy-nine dollars and seventy-five cents; and, at that price, you’re getting a set below cost.”
Still the girl looked a little doubtful. She glanced over at me, and I was sure I detected the faintest suggestion of a companionable smile this time.
“Well,” she hesitated, “may I try it out for a few moments?”
“Certainly,” said Doc, for this tickled him; he considered a customer seventy-five per cent. sold if he could get them to tuning a set themselves.
He took the set over on the counter and hooked it up with the immense aerial he maintained on the roof, and with his fixed ground. Just as the girl started turning on the lights the door opened again and a young man came in with a large bundle under his arm.
Silently he placed the bundle upon the counter and started unwrapping it. When he had finished there stood, exposed to view, one of the finest little three tube “unnamed circuit” sets I ever saw. It looked as though it was brand new; one of the sort of sets that was dear to Doc’s heart, for he often told me that it was much easier to sell a poor set that was shiny than a good set with the varnish worn off.