"Bless the boy, I don't know! Look around your store and see if there
isn't something you don't want; or else send some things up and give us
a commission for selling them. See what you can do about it." And she
bustled off without waiting for an answer.
And now for the coincidence. When I got back to the store there was an
unusually smart-looking chap waiting to see me. It seemed he
represented the Atlantic Electric Appliance Corporation, and they wanted
me to take the agency for their full line of electric appliances.
"Your line is a good thing, I'm sure," I said to him--Wilkshire was his
name--"but, candidly, I couldn't afford to put in a full supply of those
things, although I was thinking of starting with a few toasters and one
or two things of that kind."
"I can understand, Mr. Black," was his response, "that you couldn't very
well carry the whole line that we have, unless we worked with you on it.
We believe there's a big field in Farmdale for electric
appliances--better than usual on account of what the electric light
company's doing to boost things.
"Our proposition is this: If you will make a special display of
electrical appliances for a week we'll supply you with a full line of
our goods, we'll send a demonstrator to show how they are worked, and we
will go fifty-fifty on any advertising you care to do during that time.
"When the demonstration is over, go ahead and stock up what you think is
necessary, and we'll undertake to supply you with additional stock on
twenty-four hours' time. You are not such a great way from
Hartford"--that was their headquarters--"and, if you order one day, you
can have the goods right here within forty-eight hours at the latest."
Just then the telephone bell rang. Larsen answered it, and I heard him
say:
"Yes, Mrs. Twombley, he's back. I'll tell him."
I went to the 'phone, and she wanted me to be sure not to forget about
helping them out at the fair. "Remember," she reminded me, "it starts
Tuesday, the twelfth of October, and ends the Saturday following."
"Mrs. Twombley," I replied, "an idea has come to me. How would you like
me to supply you with an electrical exhibition?"
"Bless the boy! What do you mean?"
"How would you like me to make a display up there of all kinds of
electrical appliances, with some pretty girls to show everybody how they
work and what they will do?"
"That would be splendid! But there's no electricity in the town hall."
"But suppose I can get electric current run in there specially, what
then?"
"My! don't disrupt the town management on my account--but do it if you
can."
"All right. I think I can do it for you."
Well, I talked to Mr. Wilkshire, and told him my idea, and he thought it
was a good one, and said he would personally go and see the electric
light company, because he was accustomed to dealing with that kind of
people, and make arrangements to have wires carried into the town hall
for the exhibition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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