"Now, don't worry, my dear," she said; "but I want you to let me tell you"--here she hesitated and looked at me for a moment, then shook her head sorrowfully and under her breath said, "Poor boy!" "Good gracious, Mother, tell me quickly what it is!" "There, there, sit down." I sat down. My throat felt parched. Mother's remarks made me think all kinds of dreadful things had happened to my Betty. She stood behind my chair and put her arms on my shoulders and said: "Well, my poor boy, your time of ease will soon be over. Betty will be home next Wednesday." I felt as if a ton of bricks had been taken off my chest, and at once forgave Mother for her joke. I had just bought three electric vacuum cleaners, and Larsen thought I was crazy. "Retail at thirty-five dollars!" he said. "Cost me twenty-two," I retaliated. "H'm!" "Besides," I continued, "remember that we are going to dominate the electrical supply field." "And toilet articles--don't forget them," Larsen laughed. That was his hobby; and it was a hobby that meant dollars and cents to me, for that business was growing steadily all the time. We had even added toilet soap, because we had been asked for it several times. People came in to leave their safety razors to be sharpened and then bought a stick of shaving soap, and also asked if we had any toilet soap. So, right or wrong, we had gone into it. Martin had the right idea. "If you can make profit out of it it's all right." Coming back to our vacuum cleaners, I had felt that we ought to have everything electrical, just so that we could dominate the field. I might have been wrong in my reasoning, but that was how it struck me. I had asked Martin if he didn't agree with me. "I most surely do, Mr. Black," he said. "I think you have the right idea on that, and I think you will sell some vacuum cleaners." He pursed his lips, a habit he had when thinking, then added, "And, even if you don't sell them, you can make a good profit out of them." Larsen shot him a questioning look. "In fact," continued Martin, "when you think it over, you might decide not to bother to sell them at all, but just rent them during the spring cleaning time, which is coming on very soon. You ought to be able rent them for a dollar a day, without any trouble. I think that in sixty days you can rent those machines so that they wouldn't cost you anything." That was on Monday, and in the evening we had quite an interesting discussion at our "directors'" meeting. Jones suggested that we could send a man to work the vacuum cleaners, and then, while he was in the house he could sell the woman other things.