"Nonsense, man!" said the manager. "Those old rails aren't good enough. Why you ought to have the best stuff money can buy for Brazil's first public playground."
"Of course we ought," said Dr. Tucker, "but since we don't have the money to buy them with, I propose to see what we can make."
"What would you buy if you did have the money?" asked the manager. "Think it over and let me know."
Dr. Tucker went home and got a catalog of a New York store. A few days later he went into the manager's office with the catalog in his hand. The manager was so busy he scarcely had time to look up.
"Are you too busy to look at the things we need for the playground?" asked Dr. Tucker.
"Yes, I am," replied the manager. "You just take that catalog and mark what you need, and when I go to New York perhaps I can get it for you."
Dr. Tucker's eyes twinkled twice that time. He felt as if his fairy godmother had shown him a wonderful palace and told him to help himself. He sat down and marked in that catalog the things he knew the boys and girls of Rio would have marked if they had held his pencil.
The manager took the catalog to New York with him and bought every single article that had a mark before it. He paid for them with dollars—seven hundred and forty of them—out of his own pocket.
