“Don’t you think for one minute that we aren’t going to need you,” Poppy still held the floor. “In fact,” he grinned, “you’re going to be the biggest frog in the puddle. For everything that the women do will be done under your directions. The point is, Mrs. O’Mally, that we’ve got to turn out better than average pickles if we’re going to put this scheme across with a bang. You know how to do it. And you’ll want to be on the job every minute, to make sure that every part of the work is being done exactly as you would do it if you were working alone.”
Leaving Tom and his uncle at work in the underground room, with the promise that we’d give them a helping hand as soon as we got our pickle business better organized, Poppy and I lit out for town, where we had an important talk with Mr. Thomas Lorring, our former “stilt” partner, in the latter’s private office in the Commercial Bank.
“What?” the president boomed at us in pretended amazement, thinking, no doubt, of how we had similarly called upon him for help in starting up our stilt factory. “Are you young shavers trying to organize another new industry?”
“A pickle factory,” grinned Poppy, who had a hunch that he stacked up pretty high in the kindly banker’s estimation.
“And you want to borrow money, heh?”
“All we can get.”
“Meaning how much?”
“Five hundred dollars to start with.”
“Humph! Think you’re going to get it?”
“We’ve got to,” says Poppy earnestly. “For if we don’t our cucumbers will go to waste.”