“Just a moment,” answered Russell. The boy laid the helmet down with a sigh of rejection.
“Maybe I’ll be back,” he muttered, and turned away from the counter with a last desirous look at the article.
“All right,” replied Russell cordially. “Glad to see you.”
Jimmy smiled as Russell turned to him. “Didn’t have enough money, I guess,” he said.
Russell shook his head, and smiled, too. “I showed him a cheaper one, and one that would have fitted him, but he said he wanted to buy one he could ‘grow into’! You wanted a football?” He reached to a shelf behind him, drew down a box, set it on the counter and took the lid off. The box was empty, and he pushed it aside and reached for another. “Silly to put the empties back on the shelf,” he said carelessly as he opened the next box. Jimmy’s gaze roved over the rows of boxes and he smiled quizzically, but to himself.
The football looked very good to him as he searchingly examined it, but it was different from those he had been used to, a fact explained when his eyes fell on a design lightly burned into the outer leather. It was a diamond enclosing the characters “P. & F.” Curiosity clamored. “Say, for the love of lemons, Emerson, what does ‘P. & F.’ mean?” he demanded.
“Proctor and Farnham. They’re the makers. Ever used any of their goods?”
“No, never heard of them. New folks?”
“New in the East. They’ve been making footballs and things for years and selling in the West. They’ve just begun to go after this part of the country and we succeeded in getting the agency here. Very good stuff they make. Notice the way that ball is sewed? Those seams can’t open in a hundred years, I guess. And that leather’s the best horsehide procurable. There’s a big difference in leather, you know. Some balls scuff up the first time they’re used after they’ve been once wet.”