"Why not?" says he. "We can charge as much as they can, and that seems to be the main thing."
"That ain't it," I told him. "We can't get the stuff to sell. Plenty of machine made, but the summer folks won't have that, cheap or high. What they wake up nights and cry for is the genuine, hand-manufactured article; and, unless you buy it off the peddlers themselves—which would be unprofitable, to say the least—I don't see where you're goin' to get it. Besides, if you could get it, sellin' it in a store wouldn't do. 'Tain't romantic and foolish enough. Take this Burke Smythe woman," says I; "she's a fair sample. She could have got just as nice, pretty dress patterns out of a fashion magazine, or—"
"Great snakes!" he broke in. "You don't think 'twas a paper pattern she paid sixty-four dollars for, do you?"
"Never mind what 'twas," I says, dignified; "'twould be all the same, paper or sheet iron. She wouldn't care for it at all if she'd bought it in a store. There's nothin' mysterious or romantic in that. But here comes one of these liver-complected, black-haired fellers, lookin' for all the world like a pirate, and whispers in her ear he's got somethin' in that carpetbag of his that nobody else has got, and that'll make Mrs. General Jupiter Jones, or some other of the Smythe bosom friends, look like a last summer's scarecrow. And, as a favor to her, he ain't showed it to Mrs. Jupiter—which is most likely a lie, but never mind—and he'll sell it to her at a sixty-four-dollar sacrifice, because—"
"Hold on!" he interrupts. "Cut it out! Break away! Don't you s'pose I've thought of that? Your old Uncle James Henry Jacobs, doctor of sick businesses, wa'n't born yesterday by about thirty-eight years. I ain't figgerin' to handle Armenian stuff. See here, Skipper. What makes the summer bunch so crazy to get hold of old clocks, and old chains, and antique junk generally?"
"Well," says I, "for one thing, 'cause they are antiques. For another, because they come from right here on the Cape, and—"
"That's it," he sings out. "And that's enough. Well, there's plenty of handmade embroideries and laces, not to mention lamp mats and bed quilts, made right here on the Cape, too. Last fall, the county fair had a buildin' solid full of 'em. This is my plan. Do stop your Doubtin' Thomas act, and listen."
The plan was sort of simple but complicated. Fust off, him and me was to see all the old ladies and young girls in Ostable and the surroundin' country, and get 'em to agree to sell their handmade knittin' to us. If they wouldn't sell to us direct, then we'd sell it for them on commission. We'd fit up a room in the loft over the store, advertise it as the "Colonial Curio Shop" or the "Pilgrim Mothers' Exchange," or some such ridiculous or mysterious name, stock it full of the truck the widows and orphans had been knittin' or tattin' all winter, drop a hint to the summer folks—and then set back and take the money.
"It'll go, I tell you," he says, enthusiastic. "It's a sure winner. Just say the word, Skipper, and we'll start fittin' up the loft to-morrow mornin'."
"Well," says I, pretty doubtful, "if you're so sure, Jim, I—"