"Old Mans' Home you mean, I s'pose. Well, I ain't goin' there yet."
He laughed again and walked off.
In October he went up to Boston and came back with his head full of new ideas and his pockets full of notions. He'd been to what the advertisements called the Industrial Exhibition in Mechanics' Buildin' up there, and had fetched back every last thing he could get for nothin' and some few that he bought cheap. He had a sample trap that, accordin' to the circular, would catch all the able-bodied rats in a township the fust night and make all the crippled and bedridden ones grieve themselves to death of disappointment because they couldn't get into it afore closin' hours. And he had the Gunners' Pocket Companion, which was a foldin' hatchet and butcher knife, with a corkscrew in the handle; and samples of "cereal coffee" that didn't taste like either cereal or coffee; and safety razors that were warranted not to cut—and wouldn't; and—and I don't know what all. These was side issues, however, as you might say. What he was really enthusiastic over was the Eureka Adjustable Aluminum Window Screen. If he'd been a mosquito he couldn't have been more anxious about them screens.
"They're the greatest ever, Skipper!" he says to me, enthusiastic. "Fit any window; can't rust—and a child of twelve can put 'em up."
"That part don't count," says I. "Nowadays if a child of twelve ain't halfway through Harvard his folks send for the doctor. I may be a hayseed, but I read the magazines."
He went right along, never payin' no attention, and praisin' up them screens as if he was nominatin' 'em for office. Finally he made proclamation that he'd applied—in the store name, of course—for the Ostable County agency for 'em.
"But why?" says I. "We've got an adjustable screen agency now. And they're good screens, too. No mosquito can get through them—unless it takes to usin' a can-opener, which wouldn't surprise me a whole lot."
"I know they are good screens," says he; "but there's nothin' new or novel about 'em. And, I tell you, Cap'n Zeb, it's novelty that catches the coin. We want to get the contract for screenin' that new hotel at West Ostable. It'll be ready in a couple of months and there's two hundred rooms in it. Let's say there are two windows to a room; that's four hundred screens—besides doors and all the rest. That hotel will need screens, won't it?"
"Need 'em!" says I. "In West Ostable! In among all them salt meadows and cedar swamps! It'll need screens and nettin's and insect powder and 'intment—and even then nobody but the hard-of-hearin' bo'rders'll be able to sleep on account of the hummin'. Need screens! That hotel! My soul and body!"
Well, then, we must get the contract—that's all. It was well wuth the trouble of gettin'. And with the Adjustable Aluminum to start with, and he, Jim Henry, to do the talkin', we would get it. He'd applied for the county agency and the Adjustable folks had about decided to give it to him. They'd write and let us know pretty soon.