"Now our salesman for the Michigan car will also canva.s.s the car owners in the locality--representing Barlow's store, you understand,--and secure their business for accessories. We believe that he will sell enough cars and accessories to pay for himself and to make money for the store and us. In addition to this the salesman will take orders for general hardware whenever the opportunity occurs, and on such business the store gives us a commission. In other words, you see, our salesman is really a salesman for everything that Barlow will sell.

"The man we will have in charge of the garage is not only thoroughly trained in repair work of all kinds by the Michigan Car Company, but he has also been given a special schooling in simple bookkeeping, salesmanship, the need of cleanliness, courtesy, and the best way to keep his garage smart and attractive. He is not only able to repair cars, but he knows how to _charge_ for his repairs."

"All the garage men I know don't need any training in _that_," I said, with a grin.

He smiled and went on: "Now, when we have this town working properly we want to make arrangements with a good hardware man in another town. Fred Barlow and I will get hold of a local man, train him in the selling of the Michigan car, and show him how to go about building up accessories and general hardware trade. We will also teach one of the hardware man's clerks how to sell accessories; and the Michigan Car Company will then send us another man with the same training as the first to look after the garage for us, which will in every case be located as near to the hardware store as possible. The Michigan Car Company is running a regular cla.s.s-room in its factory, so that we will have fifty men, properly trained, if we need them.

"Of course, we shall have signs up in the garage that automobile accessories and hardware can be bought from the hardware store, and in the hardware store there will be signs saying that gasoline and repairs of all kinds are to be had in our garage, at such an address.

"In each town we will operate our business in the name of the local store."

"Won't you have a job in checking up your cash? Do you have your salesman look after that, and bond him?"

"No," he replied. "The local hardware man is responsible for all cash.

We get him to receive all the money collected, render us a weekly report, and send us a check for the full amount, with a list of any goods wanted for either the garage or the accessories department."

"Can you get the hardware people to do that?" I asked skeptically.

"We think we can."

"Do you think you can get them to go to all that bother and trouble?"

Charlie smiled and replied: "If they are not willing to go to that bother and trouble we would not want to work with them, for it would show they were 'dead ones.' We believe that live hardware people will be glad to work with us on a proposition such as this, which will be a source of profit to them, as well as increased sales on their regular hardware lines."

"What's the local garage man going to say about this?" I asked.

"It will be a survival of the fittest," he said quietly. "We have not entered into this to put the garage man out of business, but merely to get a garage business for ourselves. We shall not consider him in any way, or go out of our way to fight him. We shall merely mind our own business, and get as much of it to mind as we can."

"When are you going to start here?"

"May 1st," he replied.

"Say," I exclaimed, sitting up straight, "then all those goods Fred and you bought while with me in Boston are really for your store here?"

"Yes."

"Well, why didn't you or Barlow say something about it?"

"Look here, Dawson, we can trust you to the last gun shot; but, if one wants to keep a thing quiet the best way is to tell n.o.body, for if he starts to tell one, before he knows it he is telling some one else, and his plans may be frustrated before he has a chance of putting them into operation."

"Why bother to tell me about it all, then?" And then another distressing thought occurred to me. "Look here, Charlie, this is going to hurt me.

If you have a man going around selling hardware he is going to upset La.r.s.en on his weekly trips to get business. Then, what's the good of my having accessories, if you are fighting me all the time?"

The more I thought about it the more alarming it became.

"I'm going to see old Barlow first thing in the morning." I felt my temper rising. "I am going to tell him to keep his old gas tank. I won't have it; and as for those accessories, I'll return them right away.

You're not going to use me as a cat's-paw in your business, and you and Barlow can go--"

"Oh, shut up!" said Charlie, sharply. "Look here, Dawson, old man Barlow never did anything to hurt you, and is not going to now. Fred and I think too much of you. In fact, we want you to help us and yourself at the same time. This town is big enough for two hardware stores with accessories. The only man who is going to be pinched here is Martin, who runs the garage, and as a matter of fact, old Barlow is out for Martin's scalp."

I then recalled an episode between old man Barlow and Martin, the garage man, some years ago, when they had a lawsuit over a land boundary.

Martin played some very dirty trick on Barlow, who lost his case. The only comment Barlow ever made was, "I can wait." It looked to me as if Barlow was helping to start a new idea in chain store organization, and at the same time paying off an old score.

"Well, where do I come in on this deal?" I asked, somewhat suspiciously, I must own.

"Listen, Dawson," said Charlie, putting his hand on my knee, "you're a mighty original chap. Some of the selling stunts you have pulled off here show you have an excellent merchandising instinct. You have made some 'bulls,' of course, but I'd hate to have a fellow around me who couldn't make some mistakes. When we've got our plan in this town working properly, we would like you, if we could get you, to thoroughly study the automobile accessories business, and think up ways and means of selling them; and then we'd like you, if you would to come in with us as a partner and take charge of the selling and displaying of the accessories for all our stores. We would also like to have you write up form letters to send to car owners, and go around and visit the stores and see that the goods are being displayed properly. Think up new selling wrinkles for salesmen, and things of that sort."

Then he got up abruptly, leaving my head in a whirlwind with the torrent of thoughts he had given me, and said, "Think it over, old man, and talk about it with Betty, but don't let it go any further!"

CHAPTER XLIV

A BUDGET OF SURPRISES

There followed three such strenuous months that everything had to go by the board, except business; and I cannot with any clearness remember everything that took place.

We started our profit-sharing plan, as arranged on June 1, the beginning of my fiscal year. I had thought we had so thoroughly threshed out the plan that it would work like a charm; but two months had barely pa.s.sed before friction started. La.r.s.en felt he ought to get a larger percentage of the profits than his salary called for, because he went out selling, and said that he thereby created business which no one else could get and he did his regular work besides. Whenever the boy Jimmie made a suggestion of any kind he, at the same time, added that he ought to have a special extra bonus for that suggestion, if it was any good. I talked the matter over with Jock, and finally we straightened it out, but I have not the time to tell you how we satisfied the warring elements.

I would also like to tell in detail of the starting of the new chain garage plan. In three months it was already working well in Farmdale, and negotiations had been completed for the second garage in Hartleyville. We had struck an awful lot of snags in starting this plan.

How to handle the store, and at the same time study automobile accessories, had been some job, but Fred Barlow and Charlie Martin were certainly live wires, and they could think up more ways of doing a thing than I ever dreamed of.

I remember once reading something by Elbert Hubbard in which he said that every business required a pessimist, an optimist, and a grouch. I believed we would succeed, for old Barlow was certainly the pessimist in the bunch, and whenever Charlie or Fred went to him with any new idea they wanted to "pull off" in connection with the garage chain plan he acted like a brake to their enthusiasm--or, as he put it, kept them down to Mother Earth.

Charlie's father had oodles of money, and was the princ.i.p.al director of the idea, and he was the grouch. Charlie used to say that his dad never believed anything until he actually saw it.

"If I were to go to him," said Charlie, "and say to him, 'Dad, I made a hundred dollars to-day,' he would say, 'Show it to me,' and, if I did show it to him, he would then ask me if I had planned what I was going to do with it to make it earn more money. If I had told him I had, he would then say that either the investment I had planned was safe enough but didn't pay enough dividend--or else that it wasn't safe, although it paid a good dividend. I'd hate to have a disposition like Dad's,"

laughed Charlie, "and yet Dad's a good old scout, and he must believe in the plan, else he wouldn't back it the way he is doing."

Charlie, Fred and I were the optimists, I guess.

I had to thank old Barlow for doing me one good turn, for, during all the excitement I had completely forgotten to make my payment to the president of the bank, Mr. Blickens. It was the monthly payment of fifty dollars to apply against the mortgage on my farm. Jock had repeatedly told me to be sure not to get behind with that or I might lose my farm. The very morning after the payment was due I had a telephone call from Blickens, asking me to go to see him. I went, and he reminded me I hadn't made my payment. I said I would write out my check there and then, but he said, "I don't think it is at all satisfactory."

"You must take up the mortgage at once or I shall foreclose," he added in that acid tone of his.

"But, Mr. Blickens, you couldn't do that!"

"Couldn't?" he snapped. "You don't know what I could do." He pulled out his watch and said, "It's ten now--you must take up that note by twelve or I shall foreclose."

Old Barlow was in the bank as I came out of the president's office, and he evidently noticed I was feeling disturbed, for as I left the bank he followed me and put his arm around my shoulders in such a kindly way that I just told him the whole story.

He screwed his mouth a little, a habit he had when thinking quickly.

Then "Come back to the bank," he said, shortly. He wrote out a check for cash, drew the money and gave it to me, saying, "Give that to him."

We entered Blickens' office together. He looked surprised to see old man Barlow, too. "What do you want?" he snarled.