One day, Miriam Rooney, one of Mrs. Sturtevant's maids, came into the store and said she wanted to get some kitchen goods for her mistress. I asked her for a written order for the goods, in accordance with instructions from Mrs. Sturtevant, and she drew out a little book, printed especially for the purpose, in which the blanks were numbered. She slipped in a sheet of carbon for the copy, and was about to fill out the order, when she said, with a peculiar look on her face: "I--I suppose you'll charge it up the same way as Mr. Stigler used to?" The moment she said it, I felt there was something wrong. I suppose I was prejudiced against that man, and every time I heard his name I saw red. Stigler had been trying in every way he could to hurt me. He was all the time cutting prices, and I had lost quite a lot of business because of my refusal to reduce my prices when customers came and told me they could buy cheaper at Stigler's. I used to do so at first, until Old Barlow advised me not to. "Don't you think it is quite possible," he had said, "that your friend Stigler is sending some one into your store to see how much they can beat you down?" I asked what good that would do him. "Suppose a woman came in for a fifty-cent article and, by telling you she could get it from Stigler for forty cents, you were induced to let down the price, and not only sell it to her for that price, but make that the regular price on the article?" Well, I had never done that, although I had occasionally let down the price on some individual article, but since then I had adopted the strictly one-price policy. When Miriam Rooney asked me if I would charge it up the same way as Stigler, I was on my guard at once. "I don't know what Stigler does at all," I said, with a smile. "Well," said Miriam hesitatingly, "you see, Mr. Black, we use a lot of things up to the big house"--Mrs. Sturtevant was the wife of a very wealthy manufacturer in the neighborhood and kept up a large establishment--"and you might want to make it worth our while for us to buy from you. Mrs. Sturtevant said she'd as soon we'd buy from you as anywhere else." "In other words, you want a rake-off--is that it?" "Well," she said, evidently not liking the brutally frank way I put it, "it ought to be worth something to you to get all the business of the big house, hadn't it?" "No," I said, desiring to get rid of the subject in the easiest way, "I can't afford to do so at the price I sell my goods, and there would be no benefit to me in doing business without a profit, would there?" "Oh, you're soft," she said. "It needn't cost you anything." I knew well enough what she meant. "But that would be making Mrs. Sturtevant pay more for the goods than they are worth." "What d' you care, so long as she pays it?" "I want Mrs. Sturtevant's business, young woman, but I'm hanged if I'm going to do any grafting to get it!"