“Don’t I always act wisely?”
Wilkinson shook his head. “The best of us are liable to make mistakes,” he said diplomatically, “and consequently you’re more liable than most.”
Mr. Richards failed in the attempt to make a knife balance on a fork, and sighed deeply.
“I’ve been here now for—how long?—and there hasn’t been a single, solitary ring of the bell,” went on Wilkinson. “You’ve got to look the facts squarely in the face.”
“If the worst comes to the worst,” announced the other grimly, “I shall sell the business and the goodwill and stock and everything, and embark on something entirely fresh—something where I shan’t be dependent on the kindness of old friends.”
“You’ll get a big price for the goodwill,” mentioned the visitor, with sarcasm. “And I suppose you’ve taken the premises on a lease?”
“Let me fetch you a cigar,” suggested Mr. Richards desperately, “and then you give me the best advice that lays in your power.”
“Pick out one that I can smoke.”
Wilkinson’s counsel, given after he had submitted the cigar to a sufficient test, was this. Competition, brisk and determined, existed in the trade on the part of large firms who opened shops all over the place. Small establishments could only exist by the possession of something in the shape of what Wilkinson called a magnet—a magnet to draw the people in.
“You mean a gramophone?”