That evening Tom, who made the trip to the 6:05 train alone, picked up two passengers and so swelled the day’s receipts to one dollar and a half. Connors seldom sent more than one carriage to the 6:05 and on this occasion Pat Herron was late and Tom reaped what small harvest there was before the livery hack reached the platform. Pat’s look of chagrin more than made up for the insults to his beloved Ark that Tom had been forced to bear. The next morning Tom and Willard went around to the hotel and saw the proprietor, Mr. Timothy Meechin. Tim, as he was called, was a stout, good-natured man with florid face and a loud laugh who had inherited the hotel property from his father, “Meechin’s” having been a road tavern in the old days when Audelsville was only a wayside settlement. Almost everyone liked Tim Meechin, and his hotel was well conducted and popular, which was a fortunate thing since it was the only hostelry deserving the name in town. But, although Mr. Meechin was kindness itself and seemed genuinely interested in the boys’ venture, he had to refuse their request. “It’s like this,” he said, a thumb in each arm-hole of his vest――he was seldom seen with a coat――――“it’s like this, boys. Bill Connors has a sort of――of a franchise, d’ye see, to carry folks from the hotel to the depot, and t’other way, too, d’ye see. It’s a sort of a contract we made years ago and I wouldn’t scarcely like to go back on it, d’ye see. O’ course I can’t interfere with you if you bring somebody from the depot up here; you got a right to do that; but I wouldn’t like you should stand outside the hotel and take custom away from Bill. You see yourselves, boys, that that wouldn’t do.” “It seems as if Mr. Connors was operating a sort of transportation trust,” said Willard with a sigh. “Then there’s another thing,” continued Tim Meechin. “You fellows carry folks for a quarter and Bill he gets fifty cents. So if I let you stand outside the hotel, you’d get all of Bill’s trade away from him sooner or later, d’ye see, and that wouldn’t be hardly fair to Bill; now would it?” “I don’t see that,” Tom objected. “If we can afford to carry folks for a quarter it seems to me that’s our look-out. All Mr. Connors would have to do would be to――to meet competition, to put his price down, too.” “Ah, there it is, d’ye see! You fellows have an automobile which don’t cost much to run, but Bill he has a lot of horses to feed and look after and a lot of help to pay wages to. Follows, don’t it, that he can’t carry passengers as cheap as you can?” “I suppose so,” Tom granted, “but――but if you stick to that idea, why, there wouldn’t be any competition at all!” Mr. Meechin nodded untroubledly. “Right you are. It’s competition that’s ruinin’ the country, boys. What would I do, now, if a fellow came along, d’ye see, and opened a hotel across the street there? Say he bought the Perkins block and put up a new hotel. Where’d I be?”