"Sure!" he broke in. "Why wouldn't I be sure? There's only one kind of people that can get ahead of me in a business deal—and they don't hail from Armenia. Skipper, here's where we hand our peddlin' friends theirs, and then some."
Next mornin' he took the spare horse and started out. When he got back that night, he had the bottom of the wagon covered with bundles of knittin' and handmade contraptions, and he made proclamations that he hadn't begun to cover the available territory. He'd seen I don't know how many single females and widows who had the fancywork and crochetin' habit; and they sold him everything they had in stock, and promised more.
"They take to it like a duck to water," says he, joyful. "They're all down on the peddlers, and they're goin' to pitch in and supply the home market. In another week you can't pass two houses in this town without hearin' the merry click of the needle. To-morrow I canvass Denboro and Bayport, and the next day I tackle Harniss. By Monday we'll be ready to fit up the loft."
And, sure enough, he was right. The amount of stuff he fetched back in that wagon was surprisin'. How the female population of Ostable County could have turned out all that embroidery and found time to cook meals and sweep, let alone make calls and talk about their neighbors, beat me a mile. But when he told me what he paid for the collection I begun to understand. However, I didn't say nothin'. 'Twa'n't until he commenced to rig up the room over the store that I spoke my thoughts.
"Why, Jim Henry!" I says. "What are you thinkin' of? Puttin' panelin' on those walls! And paperin' with that expensive paper! It must have cost land knows how much a roll. And, for the dear land sakes, what are those carpenters cuttin' that hole in the upper deck for?"
"For stairs, of course," says he. "Think the customers are goin' to fly up there? Don't bother me, Skipper, I'm busy."
"Stairs!" I sings out. "Why, there's stairs already. What's the matter with the steps leadin' aloft from the back room? We've used them ever since we've been here, and—"
"S-shh! S-shh!" says he, resigned but impatient. "Cap'n, your business instinct is all right in some things, like—like—well, I can't think what just now, but never mind. You're a good feller, but you're too apt to cal'late by last year's almanac. You ain't as up to date as you might be. Do you suppose Her Majesty Burke Smythe, and the rest of the Royal Family we're settin' this trap for, will take the trouble to hunt up that back room, and fall over egg cases and kerosene barrels to find the ladder to that loft? And climb the ladder after they find it? No, no! We'll have a flight of stairs right from the main part of this store, where they can't help seein' 'em. And there'll be old-fashioned rag mats on the landin's, and brass candlesticks with candles in 'em at night, and—"
"Candles!" says I. "Well; that is the final piece of lunacy! Why, I could light those stairs like a glory with kerosene lamps while a body was tryin' to get sight of 'em with a candle! I never heard such nonsense."
But 'twas no use. What we must do was make that loft "quaint," and old-fashioned, and the like of that. I didn't understand—and so on.