"Rubbish!" he snaps. "A while ago, you'd have said that the embroidery trade was cornered by the Armenians. We've proved that's a fairy tale, ain't we? I've got some ideas myself. I know the kind of person I want to run that Exchange, and, sooner or later, I'll find him—or her. Meantime, we'll have to do the best we can; and I'll take it as a favor if you'll let up on the hammer exercise."
I wa'n't sure what he meant by the "hammer exercise"; but 'twas plain enough that them "by-products" was a sore subject, and that he was worried.
However, he wa'n't the only worried lace dealer in the neighborhood. The Old Colony Exchange had made good in one direction, anyhow. It had knocked the embroidery peddlin' business higher'n a kite. Where there used to be a dozen suitcase luggers paradin' through the town, now you scarcely sighted one; and that one looked pretty sick and discouraged. The home market had smashed foreign competition for the time bein'; that much was pretty sure. But our stock kept gettin' lower and lower, and the auto crowds begun to go by now instead of stoppin'. And the few that did stop hardly ever bought anything unless Jim Henry himself was there to hypnotize 'em into it.
One mornin' I came to the store pretty late, and found our clerk talkin' to a dark-complected chap with curly hair and a suitcase. I didn't shove my bows into the talk; but, when 'twas over, I asked the clerk what the critter wanted. He laughed.
"Oh, he's the last survivor of the peddlin' crew," he says. "He ain't sold a thing, and he's goin' back to Boston right off. I told him he might as well. He asked a lot of questions about the Exchange, and I took him upstairs and showed him around."
"You did?" says I. "What for?"
"Oh, just to let him see what he was up against, that's all. He was a pretty decent feller—some of them Armenians ain't so bad—and I pitied him. He was awful discouraged. He'd heard Mr. Jacobs had been tryin' to hire a salesman for up there; and he hinted that he'd kind of like the job."
"Did, hey?" says I. "Well, it's a good thing for you and him that Mr. Jacobs didn't catch you. He'd sooner have a snake on the premises than one of them peddlers. What else did he say? Anything?"
Why, yes. It developed that he'd said a good deal. Asked where we got our stuff, and so on. I judged 'twas a providence that I come in when I did, or that clerk would have told every last word he knew. I didn't say anything to Jim Henry. No use frettin' him unnecessary.
Three days after that the Injun showed up. I don't know as you know it, but there are a few Injuns left on the Cape—half-breeds, or three-quarters, they are mostly; and they live up around Cohasset Narrows, or off in the woods in those latitudes. This one was an old feller, black-haired, of course, and kind of fleshy, with a hook nose and skin the color of gingerbread. I heard talk upstairs in the Exchange; and, when I went aloft, I found him and Jim Henry settin' among the by-products, and as confidential as a couple of rats in a schooner's hold. Soon as Jacobs seen me, he sung out for me to heave alongside.