STRICTLY BUSINESS
The balloonist, Park Gregson, needed rest after his strenuous experience
of the previous day, so Frank did not disturb him. He and his mother had
their breakfast together, then Frank started out on his usual daily
round of duties.
He did his chores about the house. Then he went down to the eight
o’clock train to get a bundle of daily newspapers from the city. These
he delivered to his regular customers. At nine o’clock he went to the
office of Mr. Beach, the lawyer.
Frank was informed by the attorney’s clerk that Mr. Beach had left
Greenville to see a distant client. He would not be back for two days.
“I need somebody’s advice about this five-day notice of Mr. Dorsett,”
reflected Frank, and proceeded to visit the insurance man, Mr. Buckner.
“Good!” exclaimed the latter briskly, as Frank put in an appearance, “I
was just about to send for you.”
“To send for me?” repeated Frank.
“Yes, I told you that you might expect some further business commissions
from me, you remember?”
“Yes, Mr. Buckner.”
“Well, they have materialized. Can you give me your time unrestrictedly
for a week or ten days?”
“Why--yes, I think so,” answered Frank, but somewhat slowly, for he
thought of their family complications.
Mr. Buckner was a keen-witted man. He read something under the surface
in Frank’s hesitancy.
“Something troubling you, Frank?” he suggested.
“Oh, nothing serious, Mr. Buckner. It seems we have offended Mr. Dorsett.
He is our landlord. He has ordered us to leave the house we rent from him
within five days.”
“Hum, the old curmudgeon! His house! I wonder whose it would be if some
of his clever rascality was investigated?”
“Well, I suppose we have got to go,” said Frank. “He is ugly and
determined.”
“Oh, that difficulty can be easily solved,” declared Mr. Buckner,
lightly. “You know the vacant store front on Cedar street? I am
agent for that property, owner a non-resident. There are five nice,
comfortable living rooms upstairs. It’s only two blocks’ move for you.
If it suits you, make the move. You need pay no rent until you decide
where you wish to locate permanently.”
“You are very kind,” said Frank.
“Why--never thought of it!” exclaimed Mr. Buckner, with new animation of
manner and voice. “The very thing, it exactly fits!”
“What do you mean?” inquired Frank.
“Sit down, and I’ll explain. You took a check yesterday to pay for some
salvage at a fire at Riverton.”
“Yes, sir,” nodded Frank.
“I notified my client last night by telegraph of our success. He’s a
Lancaster man, in the hardware line. He ran up to Greenville last
evening to see me. It seems that Morton, the man burned out at Riverton,
was also in the hardware line. Everything he had was burned up in the
fire. When they came to clear the wreck, they found all the metal stock
he carried massed in among the ashes in the cellar. The insurance
company had it put in big packing cases. It was all mixed up, some of
the stock damaged entirely. My client, however, decided that it might
net him a profit on the two hundred dollars he paid for it.”
“I see,” said Frank.
“What he has engaged me to do, is to go or send to Riverton and get the
stuff carted over here. Then he wants the rubbish gone over, and the
good stuff selected and sorted out. It seems that Morton had been
neglecting his regular hardware business for some time. He invented an
apple corer that wouldn’t core very well. He bought a lot of little
stuff, such as initial buttons, needles and the like, and was trying to
get into the mail order business, when the fire came along.”
“The mail order business?” said Frank in a quick breath.
“Yes. Now he’s going to take his insurance money and buy an interest in
some publishing business in the city. Well, you can see that a little
time and care may result in picking out quite a lot of really valuable
stuff from the mass, brushing it up and all that.”
“Yes, indeed,” murmured Frank.
“We can store the plunder in the Cedar Street building. You take charge
of it, hire what help you need, and I’ll divide with you what I charge
my client for my services. Pretty liberal, ain’t I now, Frank?” asked
Mr. Buckner, with a smile. “You doing all the work, and me getting a
full half of the pay.”
“Yes, but you are the directing genius of the affair, you know,”
suggested Frank pleasantly.
“Oh, I can direct all right, if you will do the hustling,” laughed the
insurance man. “Settled, is it? All right. My client thinks it will take
a week or ten days to sort the stuff into some kind of shape. He’ll be
here to inspect progress next Saturday. You make your arrangements, and
draw five dollars a day.”
Frank was quite stunned at the munificent offer.
“I trust you implicitly, Frank,” went on his kind friend. “Here is a
letter to the custodian of the property at Riverton, and here is twenty
dollars to carry around with you to meet any expense that may come up.
Hire the moving teams as cheaply as you can, store the boxes at the
Cedar Street place. I leave the details entirely to you. When can you
start in?”
“Right now,” replied Frank promptly.
“All right, get into action.”
Frank was proud and pleased as he hurried back home. He did not let the
grass grow under his feet, but neither did he go off in a wild tangent
that might disorder things. He was all business and system.
First, he reported to his mother. They decided to move at once. Then he
sought out Nelson Cady, a close chum, and commissioned him to look
after his evening paper route and other odd jobs he did daily. Frank
decided he could save money by hiring home talent to do the moving of
the salvage stuff. He was not much acquainted at Riverton. The teamsters
there might be extortionate, as it was a double trip for the wagons.
Within an hour’s time Frank had made an excellent bargain, and all
interested were duly satisfied with the arrangement. An honest old negro
named Eben Johnson, who carted ashes and other refuse for the town, was
not doing much that especial day. He agreed to lease his two teams and
one driver for twelve hours for seven dollars and the keep of man and
horses.
Frank knew he could make no more economical arrangement than this. By
eleven o’clock he was on the way to Riverton, acting himself as driver
of one of the teams.
The driver of the other team was a good-natured though rather shiftless
fellow, named Boyle. When they reached Riverton, Frank took him to a
restaurant, gave him the best meal he had ever eaten, and made the
fellow his friend for life. The horses were given a first class feed and
a good rest.
Frank found he had to handle eight immense packing cases and one zinc
box. This latter was full of books and papers. These went to the
purchaser, it seemed, along with the “good will” of the business.
The eight packing cases were tremendously heavy. A glance at their
contents showed Frank a confused jumble. There were hammers and hatchets
with their handles burned off, saws and chisels, blackened, and some of
them burned out of shape by the fire. There were nails, tacks, hinges,
keys, door knobs, in fact a confusing mass of mixed hardware of every
description.
Frank and his man could not handle four of the cases alone. The lad had
to hire a couple of men to help them load these onto the wagons. As they
got all ready to start for home, the custodian came up with a little
wizened man with a Jewish cast of countenance, and introduced him as Mr.
Moss.
“There’s a lot of junk not worth carting away over at the ruins,”
explained the custodian to Frank. “This man wants to buy it.”
“All right,” said Frank, “let him make an offer.”
“Mein frient, two dollars would be highway robbery for dot oldt stuff,”
asserted the junk dealer, with a characteristic shrug of his shoulders.
“Is that your offer, Mr. Moss?” asked Frank in a business-like tone.
“I vill gif it chust to spite oldt Isaacs, my combetitor,” declared
Moss.
“Well, we will go and take a look at the stuff,” said Frank.
“Mein frient, dot vos useless,” insisted Moss. “Time ish monish. Tree
tollars!”
“No,” said Frank definitely. “I always calculate to know what I’m
about.”
He left the wagons, and accompanied by Moss soon reached the blackened
ruins of the hardware store.
Just as they arrived there, a shrewd-faced little urchin approaching
them halted, and gave both a keen look.
“Hoo!” he yelled--“I must tell vader!”
Moss threw his cane after the disappearing urchin, and looked perturbed
and anxious.
“Dot vos de stuff,” he explained, pointing out two cindery piles back of
the ruins.
“Why,” said Frank, poking in and out among the debris, “there is quite a
heap of it.”
“Ashes, mein frient, ashes,” suavely observed the junk dealer.
“Not at all,” retorted Frank. “Here is a stove, all but the top. Here
are a lot of hoes and rakes, twisted a little, but not entirely
worthless. Both heaps are nearly all solid metal. There must be over a
ton of iron here.”
“Four tollars--I tell you vot I do: four tollars,” said Moss fervently.
Frank shook his head and continued to look calculatingly at the
blackened heaps.
“Five tollars,” spoke Moss with sudden unction. “Mein tear younug
frient--cash. Say nodings. Dere vos de monish.”
But Frank looked resolutely away from the bank note tendered as a near
shout rang out.
A stout, clumsy man had come lumbering around the corner at his best
gait, in a frantic state of excitement.
He was in his shirt sleeves, drenched with perspiration and waving his
arms wildly. Beside him ran the urchin Frank had before noticed. It was
apparent that he had succeeded in satisfying his father that a sale of
the fire debris was on.
“Mishter, Mishter,” he called, “it is Ezekiels Isaacs. I vill puy de
goods. How mooch is offered?”
“Five dollars so far,” repeated Frank tranquilly.
“Six,” instantly bolted out the newcomer.
“Seven!” snarled Moss.
“Ten tollars,” pronounced the other, pulling out a fat pocketbook.
“Gentlemen,” said Frank. “I have made up my mind. You must start your
real bids at double that, or I cannot entertain an offer.”
“Yesh,” cried Moss eagerly--“twenty tollars.”
“Und a kee-varter!” howled his rival.
“Un a hal-luf!”
“Tage it!” roared Moss, waving his cane in impotent rage, and turned
away disgusted.
“Of course you gif me four per cent. discount for cash?” demanded the
successful bidder.
“Of course I shall not,” dissented Frank. “Shall I call back Mr. Moss?
No? Thanks,--that is correct, twenty dollars and fifty cents. Here is a
receipt.”
Frank felt that he had closed an exceptionally good sale. Within
half-an-hour the wagons were started on their way for Greenville.