"Now I guess he'll be good," says I.
But he had a scrap or two left in him, it seems. Pretty soon he cuts the price to thirty.
"We'll make it twenty-five," says Vee.
And by eleven o'clock Belcher has countered with potatoes at twenty cents.
"Why," gasps Vee, "that's far less than they cost at wholesale. But we can't let him beat us. Make ours twenty, too."
"Excuse me, ma'am," puts in one of the Scouts, salutin', "but we've run out of potatoes."
"Oh, boy!" says I. "Where do we go from here!"
Vee hesitates only long enough to draw a deep breath.
"Torchy," says she, "I have it. Form your boys into a basket brigade, and buy out Belcher below the market."
Talk about your frenzied finance! Wasn't that puttin' it over on him! For two hours, there, we went long on Belcher's potatoes at twenty, until his supply ran out too. Then he switched to sugar and butter. Quotations went off as fast as when the bottom drops out of a bull market. All we had to do to hammer down the prices of anything in the food line, whether we had it or not, was to stick out a cut-rate sign—Belcher was sure to go it one better; and when Vee got it far enough below cost, she started her buyin' corps, workin' in customers, clerks, and anybody that was handy. And by night if every fam'ly within five miles hadn't stocked up on bargain provisions it was their own fault; for if they didn't have cash of their own Vee was right there with the long-distance credit.