When I had got it all done the question came to me, What am I going to do for stock? It would be difficult to put a lot of stock in those windows to make a real display and still have left in the store any of the lines to sell. I worried over this for some time, and then I wrote to Hersom, the salesman for Bates & Hotchkin of Boston, the jobbers from whom I bought the bulk of my general supplies, and told him about my plan, and asked him if he could help me out. They were pretty decent people, and while I had to pay a fraction more for the majority of the goods than if I had bought from the manufacturer it was well worth it to me, for they looked after me well. As Hersom had told me, the last time he had called, "We certainly will do all we can for you, because you give us the bulk of your business." . . . Coincidences do happen even in a little town. The electric light company had been making a big campaign in the town, advocating the use of electricity for lighting, cooking, ironing, etc. The advertising certainly had made the gas company sit up and take notice, for they had offered to wire houses for a ridiculously small amount, with easy terms of payment, and in a large percentage of the houses they had begun to use electricity instead of gas. For some time I had been thinking of taking advantage of this fact, and putting in a stock of electric toasters and grills, perhaps an electric fan or so, and a few electrical devices like that. Well, I happened to meet Mrs. Twombley in the street. Mrs. Twombley was a close friend of the Mater's. She was a widow, like Mater, and they had been schoolgirls together, and Mrs. Twombley had been one of the episodes of my father's period of calf love. Mrs. Twombley was a big, plump, jolly-looking woman, well to do, and she was quite fond of me. The last time she had been at the house she had said to the Mater, as she rumpled my hair--she did that every time she came because she knew I didn't like it--"It was just nip and tuck as to whether I would have been Dawson's mother, wasn't it?" She was passing on the other side of the street, and, seeing me, she frantically waved her umbrella at me--she always carried an umbrella, whatever the weather might be. I went across to her, and she told me she wanted a dozen kitchen knives. "I don't know what Lucy does with them," she said. "I think she must be engaged to a sword swallower and he is practicing with my knives." Then she added: "By the way, Dawson, I have never asked you to do anything for me, have I?" "No," I replied, wondering what she meant. "Well, young man, I am going to make a suggestion to you that may cost you a few dollars. Our fair for Foreign Missions takes place, as you know, next month, and you are going to help us out." "In what way?"