A VISIT TO THE CITY
“It almost frightens me!” said Frank Newton’s mother.
The speaker looked quite serious, as she sat facing her son, who had
just read over to her the contents of several closely-written sheets of
paper.
“It needn’t, mother,” answered Frank with a bright, reassuring smile.
“Mr. Buckner gave me my motto when I started in at this work. It was
‘Sense and System.’ They seem to win.”
“Yes, Frank, and I am very proud and happy to see you so much in
earnest, and so successful.”
“I have over one hundred dollars in hand,” proceeded Frank. “We shall
get fully as much more from the sale of our assorted needle packages and
the general junk stuff down stairs. Mother, I call that pretty fine luck
for three weeks’ work.”
“You have certainly been very fortunate,” murmured Mrs. Ismond.
“Then if it is a streak of fortune solely,” said Frank, “I propose to
make it the basis of my bigger experiment. Yes, mother, I have fully
decided I shall get into the mail order business right away. The first
step in that direction is to see Mr. Morton, the Riverton hardware
merchant who was burned out. He has gone into some book concern in the
city. I shall go there on the night train, see him, and then I will know
definitely where I stand.”
“Is it necessary to see him?” asked Frank’s mother. “Mr. Buckner says
that everything he left at the fire was sold as salvage. The Lancaster
man made you a present of that old zinc box. I don’t see, having
abandoned it, how Mr. Morton has any further claim on it.”
“That is because you have not thought over the matter as much as I
have,” observed Frank. “Perhaps Mr. Morton doesn’t know that the papers
in the zinc box were nearly all saved. No, mother, I intend to start my
business career on clean, clear lines. I feel it my duty to apprise Mr.
Morton of the true condition of things. If I lose by it, all right. I
have acted according to the dictates of my conscience.”
Mrs. Ismond glanced fondly and fervently at Frank. Her approbation of
his sentiments showed in her glistening eyes.
A week had passed by since the Lancaster man had settled up with Frank.
It had been a busy, bustling week for the embryo young mail order
merchant and his assistants.
Frank had got his employees to sort out the myriad of needles into lots
of twenty-four. He bought some little pay envelopes, and had printed on
these: “Frank’s Mail Order House. Two Dozen Assorted Needles.”
As said before, this was vacation time. There was scarcely a boy in
Greenville who did not take a turn at selling the needle packages, which
Frank wholesaled at six cents each.
Most of the boys sold a few packages at home and to immediate neighbors,
and then quit work. Others, however, made a regular business of it.
Nelson Cady took in two partners, borrowed a light gig, and to date had
met with signal success in covering other towns in the county.
“Why,” he had declared enthusiastically to Frank only that evening, when
he handed over the cash for two hundred new packages of the needles,
which Mrs. Ismond was kept busy putting up, “if the needles hold out, I
could extend and extend my travelling trips and work my way clear to
Idaho.”
“You are certainly making more than expenses,” said Frank
encouragingly.
“Yes, but you see”--with his usual seriousness explained Nelson, “that
letter may come any day, and I want to be on hand to get it.”
“Of course,” nodded Frank gravely, but he felt that poor Nelson’s hopes
were like those of the man whose ship never came in.
While his young assistants were thus earning good pocket money and Frank
was accumulating more and more capital daily, he kept up a powerful
thinking.
A limitless field of endeavor seemed spread out before him. The handling
of the salvage stock had been a positive education to him.
“I see where the Riverton hardware man failed,” Frank said to himself
many times, “and I think I know how I can succeed.”
Frank packed up the contents of the zinc box in a satchel with a couple
of clean collars, cuffs and handkerchiefs, and consulted a railway
time-table.
“If I take the train that goes through Greenville at three o’clock in
the morning, mother,” he said, “I arrive at the city at exactly ten
o’clock. Just the hour for business.”
“Well, then, after supper you lay down and sleep till two o’clock. I
will busy myself putting up some more of the needles,” suggested Mrs.
Ismond. “I will have a little early morning lunch ready for you, and you
can start off rested.”
“Thank you,” said Frank warmly. “It’s worth working for such a mother as
you.”
Frank reached the deserted railway depot of Greenville in time for the
train. Nearly everybody was dozing in the car he entered. He had a seat
to himself, and plenty of time and opportunity for reflection.
Frank consulted the sheets of writing he had read to his mother the
evening previous. They contained his business plans. He had figured out
what two hundred dollars would do towards starting a modest mail order
business. However, so much depended on the result of his interview with
Mr. Morton in the city, that Frank awaited that event with a good deal
of anxiety.
When the train neared the terminus Frank took a good wash, put on a
clean collar, and tidied up generally. Leaving the train he bought a
satisfactory meal at a restaurant, and was ready for business.
Frank soon located the book concern in which Mr. Morton had invested
his money. It occupied four gaudy offices, one of which was occupied
exclusively by Mr. Morton. Frank had to wait his turn for an interview.
While seated in the anteroom, he learned something of the business
going on from the conversation of some callers there.
It appeared that the concern sold book outfits to canvassers on a
conditional salary guarantee. From what Frank gleaned very few ever made
good, so the chief revenue of the company came from the original outfit
sale.
Finally Frank was called into Mr. Morton’s office. The latter looked him
over with an urbane smile.
“Came in response to our advertisement for agents, I suppose?” he
inquired.
“Not at all,” replied Frank. “It is solely on personal business. I came
to see you, sir--about your old business at Riverton.”
Mr. Morton shrugged his shoulders impatiently, as though the reminder
was unpleasant.
“Bills?” he growled out. “Thought I’d settled everything--sick of the
whole business, and threw it up in the air for good. Go on.”
“Why,” said Frank, “I sort of represent the people who bought the
salvage from the fire insurance folks.”
“I have nothing to do with that.”
“Among the debris there was a zinc box with some of your papers in it.”
“Yes, I remember,” nodded Mr. Morton. “Nearly all burned up, weren’t
they?”
“No, sir. In looking them over I found some of your old customers’
accounts, and that like. I thought they might be valuable to you, so I
came down from Greenville where I live to bring them to you.”
“You did?” exclaimed Mr. Morton with a stare, partly suspicious, partly
surprised. “That’s queer.”
Frank said no more. He opened the suit case and removed its two neatly
put up packages. One contained the private papers of Mr. Morton. The
other contained the mailing lists and mail order system layout.
Frank placed the two parcels on the desk before his host. The latter
chanced to open the larger package first. He carelessly ran over the
lists and the accompanying literature.
“H’m,” he said rather irritably, “I’ve little use for that monument of
my fool-killer experiment!”
Frank was relieved--in fact, pleased, to observe Mr. Morton
contemptuously sweep aside the litter before him and inspect the second
package.
This interested him. He sorted out quite a lot of bills and receipts.
“Guess I’m a careless business man,” he spoke at last. “That fire so
discouraged me I just got out, bag and baggage. There’s some good,
collectible bills here. Now then, young man,” he continued, facing
squarely about on Frank, “don’t tell me you came way down here from
Greenville with that stuff just out of courtesy and kindness.”
“I will tell you the whole story, if you have the time to listen to it,”
replied Frank.
“Certainly--fire away.”
Frank recited his experience with the salvage from start to finish. He
wound up with the words: “You can see, sir, very plainly that I have
hopes of getting those lists. I have a little money, and I will be glad
to buy them.”
Mr. Morton studied Frank in a pleased, interested way.
“Young man,” he said, “you have acted very honorably in coming to me the
way you have. As to that mail order literature, cart it away. I don’t
want it. I might sell the lists, if I had the time--I haven’t--so they
are yours. And, look here, these bills--I’ll give you half of what you
collect on them.”
“You will?” exclaimed Frank, doubly delighted. “I will gladly meet the
trial for ten per cent.”
“No,” insisted Mr. Morton, “there’s some expense and trouble, you not
living in Riverton. You’ll have to hire a rig to visit some of my former
debtors. I’ve stated the proposition. Here, I’ll write you out an
authority to act as my agent.”
Frank arose to leave the office half-an-hour later a satisfied and
grateful boy. Mr. Morton had quizzed him considerably as to his future
plans. He was down on the mail order business, for he had made a failure
of it himself, but he said a good many enlightening things that at least
warned Frank of the pitfalls in his business course.
“Please, one more word, Mr. Morton,” said Frank, taking up his repacked
suit case--“about those apple corers of yours?”
“Whew!” cried his host with a wry grimace, “have I got to think of that
grand flare-up again?”
“There’s a lot of them, you know, among the salvage?” suggested Frank.
“Yes, and there would have been a lot more if the fire hadn’t stopped
returns,” declared Mr. Morton. “That was a bad investment.”
“Did you patent the apple corer Mr. Morton?” asked Frank.
“No--yes--my attorney filed the caveat, I believe. I don’t think we ever
completed the patent transaction, and of course I shan’t throw away any
more good money on it.”
“I was thinking,” said Frank, “that with a little modification--improvement,
you know? maybe it might be made to work satisfactorily.”
Mr. Morton made such an excited jump straight towards his young visitor
that Frank was rather startled.
“Young man,” he said, very solemnly, “if you want me to lose all the
really profound admiration I feel towards you for the business-like way
in which you have managed things, don’t, for mercy’s sake, tell me that
you have been bitten, too, with the fatal, crazy, irrational dream that
you want to invent something!”
“Why,” said Frank, with a smile, “is it as bad as that?”
“Worse!” declared Mr. Morton, with a comical groan. “Get the patent bee
in your bonnet, and you’re lost, doomed!” in a mock-hollow tone observed
Mr. Morton, shaking Frank by the arm. “Drop it, drop it, or you’re on
the rocks.”
“Then,” suggested Frank, “you won’t mind if I experiment with the
corer?”
“Mind? I wish you’d sink it. I wish I could forget the money I lost in
it. It’s yours, though, if you want it, only never mention that an old
dreamer of my name ever got dazzled with a toy like that. Stick to the
straight business line, lad--mail order, if you must, but cut off the
frills. Don’t wreck your ship on gewgaws that are a delusion and a
snare.”
Frank left the office of the book concern in a happy, hopeful mood.
Everything had come out beyond his fondest anticipations. He was glad he
had been truthful and honest in the broadest sense of the word.
He went back to the railroad depot and left his suit case in the check
room. A return train for Greenville left at two o’clock, but Frank
wanted to see the city. Outside of that, he wished to visit one or two
large mail order houses.
Frank employed six hours to grand advantage. He came to the depot
feeling that the money he had spent was a good investment.
After a light lunch he sat down on a bench in the waiting room. He
counted over the little pile of bank notes in his pocketbook with a
pleased smile.
“Just think,” he reflected, “I expected to pay Mr. Morton twenty, maybe
thirty dollars for those lists and the routing outfit, and here I am
going back home with practically all my original capital. Then, too, the
collection of those bills at Riverton: why, it just seems as if fortune
has picked me out as a special favorite.”
Frank found the train he was to take would not leave for over an hour.
It was already made up and standing on its track, but still locked up
and unlighted. Frank went outside and strolled up and down the dark
platform alongside the train.
He was full of pleasing, engrossing thoughts, and did not notice a
large, shrewd-eyed man who had followed him from the waiting room.
Frank was just returning to promenade back from the front end of the
train, when a sharp rustle made him turn half around.
Instantly a pair of brawny arms were stretched out towards him. Both of
his hands were imprisoned in the grasp of a sprawling fist.
“Hey, keep quiet, or I’ll smash you,” spoke a harsh voice. “Now then,
young man, I want that money you’ve got in your pocket.”