"No-o; I just wanted to see old Sam. Is he upstairs?"
"No, Mr. Graham's not in at present," Duncan told him civilly.
Sperry wrinkled his brows over this problem. "You working here?" he asked.
"Let us hope not," said Duncan pleasantly. He waited a moment, a little irritated. "Sure there's nothing _I_ can do for you?"
"No-o," said Sperry slowly, struggling to comprehend. "Thank you just the same."
"You see," Sperry pursued, "I don't buy from drug-stores: I sell to 'em."
Duncan faced about with new interest in the man. "Yes?" he said encouragingly.
"My card," volunteered Sperry, fishing the slip of pasteboard from his waistcoat pocket. He dropped his sample case beside the stove and plumped down in the chair, to the peril of its existence. "I don't make this town very often," he pursued, while Duncan studied his card. "Sothern and Lee are the only people I sell to here, but I never miss a chance to chin a while with old Sam. So, having half an hour before train time, I thought I'd drop in."
"Mr. Graham doesn't order from your house, then?"
"I don't know; I've just come here. He'll be sorry to have missed you, though. He's just stepped out to wire your house--I gather from the fact that it's in Elmira; he mentioned that town, not the firm name--for some syrups."
"You don't mean it!" Sperry gasped. "What's struck him all of a sudden? He ain't put in any new stock for ten years, I reckon."
"Well, you see," Duncan explained artfully, "I've persuaded him, in a way, to try to make something out of the business here. We're going to do what we can, of course, in a small way at first."
Sperry wagged a dubious head. "I dunno," he considered. "Sam's a nice old duffer, but he ain't got no business sense and never had; you can see for yourself how he's let everything run to seed here. Sothern and Lee took all his trade years ago."
"Yes, I know; that's why he needs me," said Duncan brazenly. In his soul he remarked "O Lord!" in a tone of awe; his colossal impudence dazed even himself. "But don't you think he could get back some of the trade if the store was stocked up?"
"No doubt about that at all," Sperry averred; "he'd get the biggest part of it."
"Sure of it. You see, everybody round here likes Sam, and Sothern and Lee have always been outsiders. They'd swing to this shop in a minute, just on account of that. Fact is, I wasted a lot of talk on our firm a couple of years ago, trying to make our people give him some credit, but they couldn't see it. He owed them a bill then that was so old it had grown whiskers."