Until the first of the month there had been a small men's furnishing store next door to me. Well, Dorman, who ran the store, had ended by running it to the wall. Poor fellow, he'd been in that location for over forty years, and at the time was a man of nearly seventy. He never had done much business, at least not since my knowledge of him, and, towards the last, the place had been getting seedier and seedier each month, and finally he had had to give it up. He told the Mater--he knew her quite well--that he never had made over $20.00 a week in the store, and, after paying up all his debts, he had less than half the money he had originally put into the business. "I'd have been much better off clerking for some one else," he had told the Mater, "for I would have saved a little money. As it is, here I am, three score and ten, and, if I live two years more, I'll have to go to the poorhouse, I suppose." Old Dorman had made me think pretty seriously when he got out. I was wondering how many more small storekeepers were in Dorman's position; how many of them had bungled along from year to year, making a bare existence; I hoped I could do better than that! It had made me feel the need of not only keeping up-to-date, but up-to-to-morrow in business ideas. I remembered what Barker, the big hardware man in Boston, had said to me when I asked him why there were so many little stores, after he had mentioned that there were a lot of little stores which were not represented in the association. "The reason," he returned, with a sad shake of his head, "is that the men who run them are little. They wear blinkers all their lives. Their outlook is extremely narrow. They never grasp what is going on around them. They don't keep up to date in their ideas and methods of doing business. They never grow, but remain little all their lives." But I started in to tell what it was that Stigler did. That afternoon, to my surprise, I saw him in Dorman's empty store with a carpenter, measuring the floor space. When he came out I was on the doorstep bidding good-by to Betty, who had dropped into the store to remind me that I was to take home some cheap kitchen knives. "Hello, Black," called Stigler, as he came out of the store. At the same time his lips gave that contemptuous curl which always got under my epidermis. "Hello, yourself, Stigler," I replied. "Well," he said, stopping for a minute in front of me, "you and me's going to be pretty close neighbors, Black, ain't we?" "What do you mean?" I asked. "I've just rented old Dorman's store. You know, I think there's room in this town for a good five-and-ten-cent store, specializing on kitchen goods. This looked like a good location to me, so I'm just going to try it out. Open up the first of the month." "Fine," I said. "Good luck to you!" putting as much heartiness into my tone as I could. And then I went into the store before my rage, and let me say, anxiety, should show themselves to Stigler.