“Sure, the school’s all right, but there aren’t any decent stores there. It’s a hole that way.”
“Where do your crowd buy your athletic supplies, then?”
“Oh, one of the druggists keeps a few things. Generally he sends away for them.”
“How long did it take you to get over here?” Jimmy asked.
“About twenty-five minutes, I guess. We came in an automobile with a man who lives there. It takes about forty minutes by the trolley.”
“Uh-huh,” responded Jimmy thoughtfully. “Don’t see why you fellows can’t do your shopping over here.”
“Well, it isn’t worth while, I guess. We manage to get most everything we want, one way or another.”
“Rackets like this one?” asked Jimmy, smiling.
“Tell you what I’ll do,” announced Jimmy. “We give a ten per cent discount to Alton fellows and I don’t see why we shouldn’t give the same to Mount Millard. You may have that racket for five dollars and sixty-two cents. All I ask is that you tell fellows where you bought it and that if they’ll take the trouble to come over here--or send over, if they like--we’ll treat them white and give them ten per cent discount from the regular price. What do you say?”
The boy hesitated, but the space of that hesitation was so brief as to be almost negligible. “I’ll take it!” he said crisply.
When they were gone, hurrying off to their appointment at the nearby dentist’s, Jimmy smiled proudly as he took out a pen and began to figure on a piece of wrapping paper. “‘b.j.t.,’” he murmured. “That’s 6, 5, 0. I was only a quarter of a dollar out of the way. All right. Now, ten per cent off that leaves--let’s see--yes, five-eighty-five.” He counted the money on the counter: a five dollar bill and sixty-two cents in change. Then he figured once more. “I owe twenty-three cents,” he muttered, and found the amount in his pocket and added it to the sum on the counter. Then he reached beneath for the cigar box and swept the proceeds into it, with an air of intense satisfaction not at all marred by the fact that the sale of the tennis racket, because he had translated the price-tag’s inscription erroneously, had cost him personally twenty-three cents!
That transaction satisfactorily completed, Jimmy went, whistling, back to the doorway to again play the rôle of the watchful spider. The tune he whistled evidently did not please Mr. J. Warren Pulsifer who had left his cage and was listlessly arranging a bunch of asparagus fern in the wax-papered bottom of a long card-board box. As he worked he shot impatient, even indignant glances at the unconcerned Jimmy, who, not realizing the pain he was inflicting on the florist’s nerves, went heedlessly and blithely on. It is just possible that, even had he realized the discomfort his melody was causing, he would have continued it, for Mr. Pulsifer didn’t stand very high with Jimmy.