"Because I show them that the ten-cent egg-beaters cannot last very long--they can't expect a ten-cent article to do that--but this glass one will last indefinitely; it is more sanitary; the tinning on it is very heavy and it won't rust; it is cleaner, more serviceable, easier to work," and then he gave me half a dozen more facts about that dollar egg-beater which I would never have thought of. "If you were buying an egg-beater," he continued with a smile, "which would you buy now?" "Buy the best one unquestionably, because I can see, after what you have told me, that the other isn't to be compared with it!" "Exactly. And if you tell those facts to your trade, they will buy the better article in just the same way." "Then, if I am selling more of the better-class goods than the cheaper ones, you would advise me to give Stigler the cheap business--give up the fight for it?" "No," he returned with a smile. "Don't give up the fight, but fight him in a way that will hurt him most. That is, to educate the people away from the cheap goods." "I see! Kind o' put him out of business by killing the demand for his goods!" "That's the idea, and it sounds easy if you say it quickly. Candidly," he said, "I don't think it will hurt your business much. I wouldn't, personally, mind another hardware store opening next to me, particularly if they played the game according to Hoyle." "But Stigler won't do it!" I cried. Betty agreed with Barlow that the thing to do was to try to develop the sale for the better-class articles. "For," said she, "if a woman buys a ten-cent egg-beater, you make three cents profit on it. If she buys a dollar egg-beater, you make over thirty cents profit on it, and the sale of one of those dollar articles is about equal to a dozen of the cheap ones." "By Jove, you're right!" I exclaimed. "Perhaps Stigler's latest move to 'run me off my feet' may be the petard which will hoist him off his own; at any rate, as regards his five-and-ten-cent venture." Naturally, I could think of nothing but Stigler and five-and-ten-cent competition, and finally I had an idea. This idea was awfully simple--unless it proved to be simply awful.