So the third summer opened brilliantly. Yardley, Gilman, and four others drew up an agreement for a co-operative store. They hired one man who had been a very successful buyer for a large grocery-firm, which had failed, and took with it his small invested capital. He was to keep the books, take orders, and do the buying, subject to the advisement of the managers. A certain low per cent of profits was agreed upon, just enough, they calculated, to pay expenses; and the goods were to be offered as low as possible for cash. The superior quality and reduced price, they decided, would be more agreeable to most of the men than a small balance at the end of the year. An account was to be kept with every member, and the agreement to remain in force one year from date. And yet there are shoals and quicksands for prosperity, as well as yawning abysses for adversity. There were people in Yerbury--not bad souls either--who were not content to allow the world to revolve on any axis but their own. They could see their neighbors' planets go to destruction with equanimity--following some law of nature or ethics that regulated supply and demand of any force, in their estimation; but when some bright particular star flashed out of the orbit they had set for it, of course it was beyond the pale of safety. There has always been a great deal of just such obstinacy in the world, just such narrow prescribing, and yet--"it does move." One of the favorite objections of these wiseacres was, that Hope Mills was founded on a wrong basis. Who knew _just exactly_ what amount of goods Winston sold? Well, there was the amount manufactured,--the amount on hand every six months. True,--with a disbelieving shake of the head,--but he was up in the ways of the world; and what would hinder him, Ananias-like, from keeping back part of the price? When this was shown to be an utter impossibility, they still were quite sure Winston harbored in his secret soul some plan for cheating the workmen at the last. Here would be all this accumulation of capital, and by some successful _coup-d'état_ Winston and Darcy would swoop down upon it, and take the lion's share. They were very much afraid that the workmen were going to be wronged in some underhand way. A defaulting cashier, unprincipled managers, thieves and forgers, committed their crimes in an out-and-out way; but there was going to be a profound mystery about this--the most simple and above-board management, when every man knew, every six months, the best and the worst of the details. Employment was becoming more general all through the country. Everybody drew a long breath, and decided that the grinding times of depression had passed. We would soon be back to the brilliant era of past prosperity.