"Say, Plunkett," he said over the 'phone, "This is Sirle. There's a bully good friend of mine, Mr. Black, going over to see your line of Christmas toys. He doesn't know the first thing about toys, but he's all right. I want you to do the best you can for him. . . . All right, I'll see if Mr. Black can be there about half-past two. . . ." I nodded assent, and the appointment was made. Well, Mr. Sirle wouldn't hear of us doing anything until we had lunch with him, so he took Betty and me out to one of the nicest little lunches I ever had. Betty quite fell in love with him, especially when she heard the way he spoke about his little boy. She said to me, coming home on the train: "A man must be all right who loves children as he does his boy." Well, we went to the toy house, and we bought a selection. We spent $160, as a matter of fact, but I was certain that we got an excellent assortment. We bought a lot of mechanical toys and a number of games. Mr. Sirle advised us to add air rifles, structural outfits, water pistols, and a few things of that nature which the regular jobbing houses carry, to make a big showing. He also advised me to make a good display in the window and have one counter exclusively for toys. "Fix a train in the window, and let one of your boys keep it wound up," he added. "The little engine running around and round on the rails will attract a lot of interest. Nothing helps a window display so much as something moving in it." In the evening we went to the theater and left New York early the next morning, getting back to Farmdale in time for me to put in a couple of hours at the store. I sent off a little order to Bates & Hotchkin for the extra toys which Mr. Sirle had advised me to buy. Mr. Sirle sold me a book on show-card writing which he said would give me some good ideas also on advertising generally. I felt a bit worried on seeing four great cases delivered to Stigler's 5- and 10-cent store, especially when I found that they were Christmas novelties and cheap toys. All the stuff I had bought was of the better quality. I hoped we wouldn't get stung with the venture, for it looked as if the toy business was going to be overdone in the town. The department store was already advertising that they'd have a children's fairyland for the whole of December. Traglio was running a lot of games, jigsaw puzzles and things of that kind. Funny thing, the year before the department store had been about the only one that did anything in toys, and they hadn't done very much. Now this year there were seven of us pushing toys and it looked as if some one was going to get left.