The rush of business to Graham's began the following morning: Duncan's hands were full almost from the first, and he had to relegate such matters as making final disposition of his stock and getting acquainted with it to the intervals between waiting upon customers. Old Sam must have put up more prescriptions in the next few days than he had within the last five years. Everybody wanted to take a look at the renovated store, shake Sam's hand, and see what the new partner was really like. Sothern and Lee's was for some days quite deserted, especially after Duncan took a leaf out of their book, bought an ice-cream freezer and began to serve dabs of cream in the sody. I've always maintained that our Radville folks are pretty thoroughly sot in their ways (the phrase is local), but the way they flocked to Graham's forced me to amend the aphorism with the clause: "except when their curiosity is aroused." Every woman in town wanted to know what Graham and Duncan carried that Sothern and Lee didn't, and how much cheaper they were than the more established concern; also they wanted to know Mr. Duncan. I suspect no drug-store ever had so many inquiries for articles that it didn't carry, but might possibly, or ought to, in the estimation of the prospective purchasers, as well as that at no time had Radvillians happened to think of so many things that they could get at a druggist's. People drove in from as far as twenty miles away, as soon as the news reached them, to buy notepaper and stamps--people who didn't write or receive a letter a month. Will Bigelow, even, dropped round and bought samples of the tobacco stock, from two-fors up to ten-centers--and smoked them with expressive snorts. Tracey Tanner's soda and cigarette trade was transferred bodily to Graham's from the first, and Roland Barnette gave it his patronage, albeit grudgingly, as soon as he found it impossible to shake Josie Lockwood's allegiance. I say grudgingly, because Roland didn't like the new partner, and had said so from the first. But everyone else did like him, almost without exception. His attentiveness and courtesy were not ungrateful after the way things were thrown at you at Sothern and Lee's, we declared.