“All right. I was expecting you. So you want me to make a business man of you, eh?”
“Yes, sir,” said Harry, wondering if he should dress as shabbily when he became a commission merchant.
“Well, I’ll do my best for you.”
“How is business, sir?” asked Harry, a little anxiously under the circumstances.
“Pretty good,” answered Mr. Fairchild.
Harry involuntarily looked round the empty room with a puzzled air. He wondered what Mr. Fairchild had to sell, and where he kept it. He could not help wondering, also, where his salary of twelve dollars a week was to come from.
“Yesterday I sold a cargo of sugar,” resumed Mr. Fairchild,—“ten thousand dollars’ worth. I must have you make out the bill presently.”
Harry looked and felt astonished. He began to suspect that, in spite of appearances, considerable business might be done even in this little room. Probably Mr. Porter’s sales for an entire year would not amount to more than twenty thousand dollars, yet here was a sale of half that amount in a single day.
“Do you often make such large sales?” he asked, with a new feeling of respect.