There was one funny little incident in connection with the broken window-pane, however, and it came from Jimmie. When I got back to the store, that freckled-face rascal said, "Gee, Boss, I've got a whale of an idea!" "What is it?" I asked. "Why not put a big sign in the window offering a ten per cent. reduction?" "That's a silly idea. Why should we do that?" "You don't get me, Boss," he said. "Here!" and he handed me a brick. "What am I to do with this?" I asked in surprise. "Hit people on the head as they go by the store, grab their money and give them a dishpan in its place?" I feared Jimmie would burst if I didn't let him finish his story. "Put the brick in the window, Boss," he said excitedly, "then stick a sign on it saying, 'Who threw this brick through our window, and knocked ten per cent. off the price of everything?'" It sounded silly; but, somehow, it interested me. I think the thing that interested me most was that Jimmie should be looking for some way to turn misfortune into profit. At any rate, I put that sign in the window just as Jimmie suggested, with the added line that, as soon as the window was repaired, prices would go back to normal. I believe that Jimmie spent every minute of his spare time out of the store telling people to come and see his big selling idea, for numbers of people said to me, "Yes, I heard about your window with the brick from your errand boy--smart kid that!" and then they would grin. It got me some business, and started a lot of talking. I remembered what Barlow had once said: "Keep them talking about you; and be thankful when people pitch into you. Nobody ever bothers to kick a dead dog." I was mighty glad it had not been our other window, though, for that had contained a splendid show of electrical household goods. Wednesday I had dinner again with Roger Burns. He told me that the chain store for which he was manager had opened in good shape, and that on the opening day they had given a clock calendar to the visitors as a souvenir. It had been a cheap clock in a metal frame, so made that it would either hang on the wall or stand on a shelf, while attached to it below was a year's calendar. Above the clock had been written the slogan: "All the time is the right time to buy kitchen goods from the New England Hardware Company." Below the face of the clock was the address and Roger Burns' name as manager. Roger said something, that night, that interested me mightily. "One reason why chain stores make a success is that they try to dominate the field in one direction. For example, look at the five-and-ten-cent stores. Notice how they all dominate any other store of their kind. They have something distinctive and unusual about them. Notice the places of the big drug and tobacco chain-store systems. They dominate in some particular way!" That word "dominate" stuck in my mind. "How do you purpose to dominate?" I asked of Roger.