Ned importantly spread out quite a voluminous order list before Frank.
"Accompanied with the cash," added Ned, and set down a crisp, encouraging-looking five-dollar bill beside the document.
"Oh!" ejaculated Markham, almost falling off his chair with surprise.
"Ned," said Frank, with a touch of genuine feeling, "thank you."
"That's all right," responded Ned. "We're simply working to get your bank account when it runs up into the thousands, see?"
"Will it ever, I wonder?" murmured Frank.
"Isn't that a nest egg?" challenged the practical young financier.
Frank looked up from his work with an eager flush on his face. Markham, who had gone to the post office, was returning. His light, springy step coming up the walk, and cheery, ringing whistle told Frank that he was the bearer of good news.
"Afternoon mail," sang out Markham, putting the satchel down on Frank's desk. "And she's a cracker-jack!"
"Over thirty letters," continued Markham gaily. "Stamps in some, coin in others. My finger tips just itched to feel those letters, Frank. I just had to do it. Oh, if this suspense keeps up I'll be rifling the mails next."
Frank slitted all the letters in turn. Four postal cards asking for catalogues were promptly disposed of. The first of the letters was from a country newspaper offering reduced terms for advertising.
There was an application for an agency. No. 3 wanted to be hired in the office--could count money and put on postage stamps fast.
Frank was not given to being very demonstrative on any occasion. As, however, he now began to stare at the next letter he opened and almost uttered a shout, Markham knew that something very much out of the ordinary had come up.
"What is it, Frank?" he questioned eagerly.
"Markham," said Frank, quite unnerved with excitement, "it's a big, big order."
"How big?" demanded Markham. "Quick, I'm on the edge of nervous prostration."
"Fifty to one hundred dollars," announced Frank, in quite a husky voice. "A few more of such orders and we'll know where we stand. It's from the owner of a general store at Decatur. He writes that he has purchased from an advertising agency fifty-two picture rebuses--easy ones--one for each week in the year. Accompanying them are fifty-two separate advertisements. These he intends to insert in his weekly paper. He wants to offer each week ten prizes for the ten persons who first appear at his store with correct solutions of the rebuses."