“No, let’s go over it first. There may be something I’ve missed. Now, say Mr. Adams lets us have the space for twenty a month; that’s enough, although he may not think so; then we’ve got to have a counter built and that will cost, say, ten dollars. It’ll have to be made to look pretty neat, you know; maybe it had better be imitation mahogany. Then we’d arrange with the news company for a small list of magazines. We’d have to pay cash for those at first, but they don’t cost much. Same way with the papers. There’s good money in the _Gazette_ and the _Recorder_ at two cents if you sell enough of them. Then we’d want to put in some confectionery, like gum and chocolate and package things. We can buy that in Cincinnati and get as little as we want to start on. At the end of the month we ought to have enough for the next month’s rent and enough to put in new stock. My idea would be to make the stock bigger all the time, as we could afford it. There wouldn’t be any other expenses, would there? Can you think of any?” Jack couldn’t. “It looks perfectly safe to me,” he said, “because the rent is the only thing we’d have to worry about, isn’t it? I mean, we needn’t have more cigars and other things at a time than we could sell right away.” “That’s the idea. We’ve got to begin in a small way and expand. We won’t lay out a cent more than we have to. Then, if it shouldn’t prove a go we wouldn’t be stung very much. The papers, you know, are returnable, so we wouldn’t get stuck on those. Some of the magazines are, too, I think.” “Hold on!” exclaimed Jack suddenly. “Who’s going to tend shop? We’ll be in school all day up to three o’clock. Bet you hadn’t thought of that!” “You must think I’m a good deal of an idiot,” laughed Joe. “I’ll tell you my scheme. I thought I could go down there in the morning and get things fixed. We’d have a box on the corner with a slot in it and when anyone bought anything they could drop the money in the box. Then, after school――――” “Suppose they didn’t!” interrupted his chum. “Seems to me that’s pretty risky!” “I don’t believe so. You put folks on their honour like that and they’ll appreciate it and act square. I’ll bet we won’t lose half a dollar a month, Jack.” “Well, you’ve got a lot of faith, Joey. Still, you may be right at that. Come to think of it, I guess you are. All right. And then after school we could go down there and tend shop, eh?” “When we didn’t have to practise.” “That’s so. I’d forgotten practice. Well, on Saturdays we could be there all day, eh? That would be a lot of fun. I’ve always wanted to be a merchant and sell things. ‘Cigars? Yes, sir. I think you’ll like these. We make them ourselves and know just what goes into them, sir. Two for five, please. Thank you, sir. Come again if you live!’ That’s the stuff, isn’t it?” “Fine!” laughed Joe. “Now let’s go down and hear what your father says.” CHAPTER VII PARTNERS