“‘Old’ is right,” muttered Stanley gloomily.
“I th-th-think Jimmy’s right,” declared Coolidge. “No reason why we sh-sh-shouldn’t pat-pat-pat—”
“Stop talking Irish, Bob,” said Greenwood. “Are you going to have basket ball stuff, Emerson?”
“Yes, we’ll have a pretty complete line by the first of December, or a little before. I’d like to have you come in and let me show you, Greenwood. We’re agent here for the Proctor and Farnham Company, and their basket balls are certainly corkers.”
“Never heard of them,” said Sid Greenwood unenthusiastically. “We’ve always used—”
“He’s got the other makes, too,” assured Jimmy. “But if those P. and F. folks make as good a basket ball as they do a football, I advise you to tie to them. I’ll bet even you could shoot a basket with one of those balls, Sid!”
Greenwood grinned. “I’d surely like to see one of them,” he said. “I’ll drop around some time, Emerson, and have a talk. Of course, it’s the manager’s place to do the buying, but I dare say I could get him to consider your stuff. There’s no special reason, so far as I can see, for sending to New York for things if we can get them just as good in town.”
“Say,” said Stanley, after a long silence, “why not start a Home Consumption League, if that’s what they’re called? We fellows represent four of the school sports, and here’s Emerson and his pal trying to make a little coin out of a store in the village that sells just the stuff we buy. Let’s see if we can’t—can’t head some trade his way. What do you say? It took pluck to start that store, I guess, and we all like pluck. Seems to me he deserves to win out. And he can’t fail to if he gets the school trade. Of course, there wouldn’t be any favoritism about it. He’d have to make as good prices as New York, and sell as good stuff, but I dare say he could do it, eh, Emerson?”
Thus appealed to, Russell nodded, smiling rather seriously. “I’m quite sure we can supply just as good stuff, including uniforms, as can be bought in New York, and I think we can sell a little cheaper. How much cheaper I don’t know now, but enough to be worth considering, I’d say. Besides that, there’d be no express to pay, for I’d deliver the goods right to you.”
“S-s-sounds reasonable,” declared Coolidge.