“I see,” commented the Doctor interestedly. “And so you and Patterson, your room-mate, decided to start this shop. That was last spring, you say?”
“We didn’t exactly decide then, sir. That is, I decided to do it if I could, but I couldn’t get Stick--that’s Patterson, sir: his name’s George, but every one calls him Stick--I couldn’t get him to promise until about the middle of the summer. I’d have gone into it alone, only I didn’t have enough money, and Stick had some he’d saved and I wanted it. You see, it takes quite a lot to get a thing like this started, sir.”
The Doctor nodded gravely. “Undoubtedly,” he agreed. “And between you, you managed to get enough together to put it through, Emerson?”
Russell shook his head ruefully. “No, sir, not enough, but--well, it has to do,” he answered a bit defiantly. “Stick didn’t want to--I mean he found he couldn’t put in quite as much as he thought he could, sir, and I didn’t make quite as much during the summer as I’d expected to, and so it left us sort of short when the time came.”
“Yes, sir, I waited on table at the Pine Harbor House. They didn’t have a very good season. Too much rain and cold weather. A lot of the fellows made less than I did, though, so I guess I oughtn’t to kick,” added Russell thoughtfully.
There was silence for a moment, and then the Doctor, having taken up his pencil again, said: “I don’t want to pry into matters that don’t concern me, Emerson, but it must have taken at least several hundred dollars to start this shop of yours. Now, just suppose that there isn’t the demand for your wares that you anticipate. What then? It’s going to whisk that money away, isn’t it? You’ve laid out most of it, I presume, on goods, you’ve had to sign a lease of the premises you occupy and you’ve paid some rent already. Have you thought what may happen? What happens every day in retail business?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Russell. “It’s a risk, I know, but it isn’t as big as you think, I guess. We didn’t have much money to start on and so we don’t stand to lose very much, even if all went, which it can’t. We’ve taken only half a store and we’ve leased it by the month. A florist has the rest of it, a man named Pulsifer. You see, we couldn’t afford to take a whole store, not where we wanted it, and so we made an offer to this florist fellow and he fell for it right away. He had more space than he needed, except around Christmas and Easter time, and he was quite keen about renting it. Then we haven’t put in a very big stock, sir. You see, there are so many things that we have to handle that we just couldn’t begin to keep them all. So we have samples of most everything and a fair line of the fall things. If we don’t happen to have what’s wanted to-day we telephone to New York for it and we get it to-morrow.”