After the meeting had adjourned Kid retired to his room, which he shared with Stanley Pierce, a senior, and stretched himself out on the window-seat to think things over. Stanley was out and Kid was glad of it, for the problem confronting him demanded a lot of study. How was he to make some money? He had read or heard of boys who earned money and he tried to remember how they had done it. Usually, it seemed to him, they sold papers or ran errands. There were no papers to be sold at Mt. Pleasant Academy and nobody wanted any errands run except the upper class fellows, and Kid’s wildest imaginings failed to picture them paying for such service. If you didn’t run the errands, he reflected ruefully, you got paid all right, but it wasn’t with money! He tried to recall how the heroes of the various stories he had read had risen to fortune. In the Alger books the hero, having been left behind in the great city through some astounding combination of circumstances, had a pretty hard time of it until he dashed in front of a pair of runaway horses and rescued the beautiful daughter of the wealthy banker from certain death. After that it was plain sailing. But Kid didn’t quite see how he was to rescue any bankers’ daughters. He abandoned that idea with a sigh, for he rather fancied himself as a hero.
He had heard that boys sometimes made money selling books or subscriptions to magazines, and after he had considered and rejected various other schemes he went back to the canvassing plan and thought it over again. Of course, there weren’t many folks here at school who would be likely to subscribe. Even if he was successful with the Doctor and the two instructors, Mr. Crane and Mr. Folsom, he would still be a long way from that ten dollars. Perhaps he might persuade one of the older fellows to subscribe; Stanley, for instance, or Steve Lovell; Steve was good natured to a fault; but that was very doubtful. So that meant that he would have to try his fortunes in the nearby villages, Mt. Pleasant, Riveredge and Whittier. Then he wondered how much you made on a subscription and what magazines he had best honor with his support.
He tumbled off the window-seat and rummaged about the closet shelf until he had found an old number of a magazine which Stanley had brought from home. It wasn’t a very high-class publication, but Kid had read the entire contents of it and approved. He nestled down amongst the pillows again and turned to the advertising pages. Bathtubs, breakfast foods, bonds, furniture, patent medicines, agents wanted. Ha! He would be an agent! Kid scanned the columns eagerly. Somebody wanted an agent in every town to sell a suction cleaner and promised 150 per cent. profits. Another concern had a razor strop that folks bought on sight, but the profit was only 100 per cent. and Kid passed it over. A family needle-case sounded more promising, the profit being estimated at from 200 to 500 per cent. Kid liked that until he discovered that an initial outlay of twenty-five cents was necessary. Kid only possessed thirteen cents. Another advertiser assured him that he could make “big money” silvering mirrors in his spare moments, but as the advertiser neglected to state what he considered “big money” Kid sniffed suspiciously and read on.
The difficulty was that those who guaranteed large results demanded from twenty-five cents to a dollar, while those who were willing to send samples without cost were cruelly silent on the subject of profit. But at last Kid found something that promised well. Tinkham’s Throat-Ease was plainly a wonderful discovery. It—or they, since they were tablets “put up in attractive boxes to fit the pocket”—was—or were a certain cure for hoarseness, sore throat, quinsy, tonsilitis, bronchitis, canker of the mouth, cough, gumboils and many other afflictions. Agents had made as much as forty dollars a day. The demand was terrific. They sold themselves. And all you had to do was to send ten cents in stamps or silver to the Tinkham Chemical Company, Waterloo, Illinois, and receive two dozen boxes of the tablets. You then sold the tablets for twenty-five cents a box, remitted two dollars to the company and kept the balance. Kid seized a pencil and figured rapidly, with frowning brow, on the margin of the magazine. Why, that was six dollars! And two dollars out left four dollars! That was—how much per centum was it? It took some time to figure that, but he finally decided that it was nearly two hundred. And if he sold a box to every fellow in school he would have four dollars in no time! Then, of course, he could buy forty-eight more boxes, which would—more figuring—leave him with eight dollars. And eight dollars and two dollars—no, four dollars—made twelve dollars! He had only agreed to earn ten. He would have two whole dollars for spending!
Kid rushed to the table and indited the following epistle then and there:
Tinkham Chemical Co.,
Gentlemen:
Please send me immediately one agent’s outfit like you advertise to send in Puffer’s Popular Monthly for ten cents. Here’s the ten cents. Please send it immediately to Mr. James Fairchild, Mt. Pleasant Academy, Mt. Pleasant, New York, and oblige,
Respectfully,