"Gee whitakins!" I thought. "A five-and-ten-cent store, next door to me, specializing in kitchen goods, and run by Stigler!" I knew, without his saying a word about it, that he was opening that store with the money he had just inherited from a brother out West, and that he was doing it just to try "to run me off my feet," as he had expressed it before. I think I did the best thing I could possibly have done under the circumstances, for I went right over to Barlow's. Barlow had told me repeatedly that, any time I needed help, I should go right to him. I certainly felt that I needed the advice of an old war-horse like he was. Somehow the fact that he was a bit old-fashioned and staid in his ways made him appear a rock of comfort to me. I told him the whole story, and he certainly looked grave. "What can I do?" I asked anxiously. "I haven't the money to fight him. He is cutting into my profits very much as it is. Would you advise me to make a big display of five-and-ten-cent goods before he has a chance to open the store?" "When is he going to get started?" "Well, he said he was going to open by the first of the month." I think for five minutes Barlow said nothing, but just see-sawed backward and forward on his swivel chair. "What ratio would cheap kitchen goods bear to your total sales?" he finally asked. "I don't know what you mean." "I mean, suppose you sell a hundred dollars' worth of goods, how many dollars' worth of that would be in five- ten- and fifteen-cent articles?" "I can't tell you that." "Surely you have some idea as to whether the cheap goods are the ones that sell best in your store?" "Well, I'm sure I don't know." Some of those old-timers' were pretty shrewd fellows after all. I had never thought of analyzing my sales in that way. "Tell you what to do," he said. "Find out what proportion you are buying of five- ten- and fifteen-cent kitchen goods, and how much of the better-class goods." "What then?" I inquired, still in the dark. "If your big sales are on the cheaper goods, I would advise you to make a window display of half cheap and half good articles. Put a sign in the window to the effect that you have cheap articles to sell, and good ones to use. If you find your sales are mostly on the better-class goods, I would advise you to start an educational advertising campaign, if you can afford it." "What is an educational advertising campaign?" "It means advertising the better-class goods and giving reasons and facts why they are better than the cheaper ones. Advertise that you have the low-priced articles, but, if they want the cheapest, the _best_ is the cheapest in the end. For instance, here is a ten-cent Dover egg-beater. I have one here, a glass affair, which sells at a dollar. Actually, I am selling almost as many of the dollar egg-beaters as I do of the ten-cent ones." "Why?"