The store had $9460.00 worth of goods, reckoned at cost. Jim agreed to let me have all his fixtures and show-cases, which he said had cost him over a thousand dollars, and good-will, for $540.00, making the cost of the store to me $10,000.00. When Jim told me the cost would be $10,000.00 I was considerably disappointed, for I had only $8000.00 besides the farm. I told Jim the farm was worth, I thought, about $8500.00, but I couldn't sell that right away and, of course, I couldn't pay out all my ready cash, because I wouldn't have anything left for operating expenses. Jim was pretty decent about it, and said: "You give me $7000.00 in cash and a mortgage on the farm and I'll give you a year to pay the balance. With the big profit you can make in this store, you'll be able to pay that $3000.00 in no time at all. Besides, if you couldn't quite manage it in a year, I'd renew it, of course." But I thought I ought to have more than $1000.00 left, and finally it was agreed that I should give him $6500.00 in cash and a mortgage on the farm for $3500.00 I had my $8000.00 deposited in the Farmdale Trust Company, so we went over there and I gave him a check for the $6500.00. I thought I ought to do well with $1500.00 besides that splendid store of goods. Jim had started out to be a lawyer and had studied law for a while, and he said he would draw up the mortgage himself so there wouldn't be any delay about it. I brought him over some legal-looking papers I had from Aunt Emma's estate--deeds, he called them--and we fixed that up without any trouble. I asked Jim if we ought not to take stock together, and he said, "Sure, if you want to;" but I found that he had an exact stock-keeping system, and Jim suggested that we pick out about a dozen items and just check those up--"for," said he, "what's the use of checking up fifty cents' worth of this and thirty cents' worth of that? Your time is too valuable for that." I agreed with him, for I couldn't afford to waste my time now that I was the owner of a store. Betty asked me that night if I had had a lawyer to go over the thing with me, but I laughed at her and said, "I don't want a lawyer for a little deal like this between Jim and me." I told her it would have been almost an insult to have suggested that I wanted a lawyer. She shook her head sadly and said something about a man who was his own lawyer having a fool for a client--which I thought was not at all called for!