About two weeks before, a salesman of cheap enamelware had come into town, gone to Purkes, and sold him two or three cases of "seconds." Purkes thought he was a real fellow when he filled his window full of those seconds. The same week I was having a display of perfect enamelware. He put a price on his goods of ten cents each. He also had a big sign in the window, reading: "Don't pay fancy prices for enamelware. Purkes's cut-rate grocery store will sell you all you want for ten cents each. Pick them out as long as they last." Now, old Barlow always played the game square. Stigler was certainly a hardware man, and I could stand for his cut prices; but, when a grocery store came butting in, I felt mad, and I told Charlie Martin that I'd like to get Purkes's scalp somehow. Charlie suggested quite a good little stunt. Three days after Purkes offered his enamelware I had a window full of--what do you think?--tea; in half-pound packets! And it was an advertised line, Milton's, which was a line that Purkes had sold for a long time! That tea usually sold for fifty cents a pound. I put a sign in the window saying: "Why pay fifty cents a pound for Milton's tea, when you can buy it here for thirty-eight cents a pound, nineteen cents the half pound." That was exactly what it cost us. Martin had got hold of it for us from a friend of his in Providence, who was a wholesale grocer. You really would have laughed to see Purkes come flying into our store about fifteen minutes after our window trim was complete. He reminded me of a wet hen who had had her tail feathers pulled out. He couldn't speak, he just sputtered and pointed to the window. After a minute I caught the words, "Scoundrel!" and "robber!" and "unjust!" and "report to the Merchants' Association!" I turned around and caught sight of Charlie grinning his head off. He passed the high sign to me, which I understood to mean "Let him talk." So I beckoned to Charlie to come over. "This is the man who thought up that idea," I said to Purkes. "It's a good one, don't you think?" Both Charlie and I saw that Purkes was going to explode again, so Charlie said: "Now listen, Mr. Purkes. Do you think it is any worse for us to sell tea than for you to sell enamelware?" "But that's just a job line I bought! Just the little I sell could not hurt you,"--then he added maliciously, "unless, of course, you get fancy prices for your goods." I felt like throwing him out of the store; but Charlie ignored his last remark and said, "That idea of yours selling enamelware was so excellent that I thought we ought to copy it. You sell hardware--we sell groceries." "You are--how long are you going to continue selling tea?" "Only until this lot is sold out." "I'll tell you what," said Purkes, brightening up, "I'll buy your tea of you and you buy my enamelware." "We don't sell seconds in enamelware, Mr. Purkes, so your enamelware is useless to us." "Very well, I will continue to sell enamelware."