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: