“Just wait till I get my head above water,” Whipple said once, when Matthews clutched his arm and essayed to speak of a matter concerning the church. “I reckon I'm worldly minded, Brother Matthews, but a man has to be tainted that way to fight worldly matters. Right now I am as full of Old Nick as I ever was in my worst days. I know it; I feel it; but, by gum! I am not ashamed. Day and night prayers wouldn't move a rascally skunk like Thorp. He was my friend as long as he could suck my blood, and now he is my worst enemy because I wouldn't let him.” As the weeks passed, matters only grew worse for the wholesale store. Its town customers dropped off till local business amounted to nothing at all. One morning the merchant walked the full length of the main street. He went up one side to the court-house at the far end, and then slowly returned on the other side. On the way he met Matthews, who told him something he had not heard, and he walked on, now more slowly than ever. As he was passing through the counting-room on his way to his private office he paused between the stools on which Fred and Dick were seated. His face was ashen in color, his lower lip was quivering like that of a weeping child. “What do you think is in the wind now, boys?” he gulped, as he placed an unsteady hand on Fred's shoulder. “I have no idea,” Fred answered. “All the balance have combined,” Whipple groaned. “Who?--what?--how combined?” Fred asked, wondering if his old friend was not actually losing his reason. “Why, all the other retailers have formed a pool to beat Thorp, and in doing it they have knifed me. They have formed a combine to buy their stuff in St. Louis and New York in order to get car-load rates. They had a caucus last night in the rear end of Thompson & White's shebang, and the last one signed up. They don't buy a thing from us--the man who spends a nickel at this house loses his membership. They are a lot of sneaking curs, to pull me down and stamp on me just because that scamp's upset business, but they done it. The thing will spread all over the State, and I'll be laughed at as a doddering old idiot. Folks like nothing better than to see a successful man get it in the neck.