“Oh yes, indeed! Harry Sartwig. I don’t know him personally, but of course I’ve heard of him. Well, I do wish you’d think it over, some day, Mr. Appleby. Indeed I understand about the capital. If you and me ever did happen to come to terms, I’d try to see my way clear to giving you an interest in the business, in return for your city experience and your expert knowledge and fame and so on as an explorer—not that we outfit so many explorers here. Hee, hee!”
“Well, maybe I’ll think it over, some day. Well—well, maybe I’ll see you again before I get out of town. I’m kind of planning to stick around here for a day or two. I’ll talk over the suggestion with Mrs. Appleby. Me, I could probably call off my wager; but she is really the one that you’d have to convince. She’s crazy for us to hike out and tramp clear down into Mexico and Central America. Doesn’t mind bandits and revolutions no more than you and I would a mouse.”
In his attempt to let people bluff themselves and accept him as a person to be taken seriously, Father kept on trying to adhere to the truth. But certainly this last statement of his was the grossest misrepresentation of Mother’s desires. Mother Appleby, with her still unvanquished preference for tea and baths, did not have the slightest desire to encounter bandits, snakes, deserts, or cacti of any variety.
“Well, look here, Mr. Appleby; if you are going to be around, couldn’t you and the madam come to dinner, as I was so bold as to suggest awhile ago? That would give us a chance to discuss things. Aside from any future business dicker between you and me personally, I’d like to show you just why Lipsittsville is going to be a bigger town than Freiburg or Taormina or Hongkong or Bryan or any of the other towns in the county, let ’em say what they like! Or couldn’t you come to supper to-night? Then we could let the ladies gossip, and I’ll have Doc Schergan come in, and maybe him and me between us could persuade you to think of taking a partnership with me—wouldn’t cost you a cent of capital, neither. Why, the doc was saying, just this morning, when we was speaking of having read about you in the paper—he was saying that you were the kind of man we need for president of our country club, instead of some dude like that sissified Buck Simpson. Buck is as punk an athlete as he is a shoeman, and, believe me, Mr. Appleby, we’ve got the makings of a fine country club. We expect to have a club-house and tennis-courts and golluf-links and all them things before long. We got a croquet-ground right now! And every Fourthajuly we all go for a picnic. Now can’t the madam come? Make it supper this evening. But, say, I want to warn you that if we ever did talk business, I don’t see how I could very well offer you more than a forty-per-cent. interest, in any case.”
“No,” growled Father, “wouldn’t take over a third interest. Don’t believe in demanding too much. Live and let live, that’s my motto.”
“Yes, sir, and a fine motto it is, too,” admired the shoeman.
“What time is supper?”
“... and before I get through with it I’ll own a chain of shoe-stores from here to Indianapolis,” said Father. “I’ll be good for twenty years’ more business, and I’ll wake this town up.”
“I do believe you will, Father. But I just can’t believe yet that you’ve actually signed the contract and are a partner,” Mother yearned. “Why, it ain’t possible.”