Читать книгу Poppy Ott's Seven-League Stilts - Edward Edson Lee - Страница 6

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There are a number of small towns scattered about Tutter. One of the most important of these towns is Ashton, the county seat. If you have read my book, Jerry Todd and the Oak Island Treasure, you know what kind of a town Ashton is. For it was there, as you will remember, that we put on our big magic show and later on got into trouble with the law through dropping a greased pig into a room where the marshal, who was against us, was playing poker with our other chief enemy, the town bill poster. Golly Ned! We sure had fun that night.

I thought of the greased-pig trick the following morning as I got into my Sunday clothes. And I wondered curiously if Poppy and I would scare up some new kind of excitement in our trip to the county seat.

I found my chum dressed up as slick as a button.

“I’ll tell the world,” says I, strutting around in my good togs, “that there’s real class to the officers of the Tutter Advertising Novelty Company. Any one would think to look at us that we were going away to get married.”

“Good clothes,” says Poppy, “always helps a salesman in his work. For a great many business firms size up a man by his appearance. And if he looks seedy they conclude that he is a failure and therefore a poor person to do business with.”

“When do we start?” says I.

“There’s an interurban car leaving here at eight-thirty. It gets to Ashton at nine-fifteen. By snappy work we ought to finish in the first town and get over to Steam Corners by eleven-thirty. Then, if we hustle, we can catch the one-thirty car for home, getting here before the bank closes.”

“Do you know anybody at the bank?” says I.

“I know the president when I see him.”

“Old Mr. Lorring and Dad are great friends,” says I.

“Isn’t there a younger man in the bank by the same name?”

“That’s the president’s son,” says I. “Mr. Thomas Lorring, Jr.”

Poppy went to the mirror and took a last careful squint at himself.

“Wait a minute,” says I, standing back and cocking my eyes critical-like at his smoothly combed head.

“What’s the matter?”

“There’s one hair out of place,” says I, patting it down. Then, before he could swat me, I gave his rubber necktie a yank and let it fly back.

“For the love of mud!” says he, scowling. “If you’re going to keep up this horseplay you’d better stay at home.”

“What’s the idea of being so stiff-backed?” says I, strutting around in fun. “We aren’t going to sing at a funeral.”

He flicked a particle of dust from the sleeve of his coat.

“Carry a little dignity around with you, kid. Remember that you’re the secretary and treasurer of the world’s foremost stilt concern.”

“Yes, Mr. President and General Manager,” says I, bowing.

Well, it was close to car time now. So we grabbed the complete output of the world’s foremost stilt factory and skittered down the street to the interurban waiting room, where we enriched the traction company to the extent of thirty-five cents apiece.

Just before we drew into Ashton young Donner whizzed by us in his father’s red sedan. Boy, he sure was cutting the wind.

“We ought to have rode over with him,” I laughed, “and saved our car fare.”

Poppy snorted.

“Him give me a free ride? Hardly!”

“What’s the matter?” says I, grinning. “Doesn’t he like the way you part your hair?”

“He’s had it in for me ever since that shoe sale. And when I meet him in the street he almost glares a hole through me. His father acts the same way, too.”

I shrugged.

“We should worry. The Donners aren’t the kind of people to have for close friends, anyway.”

Here our private coach merrily swung around a curve and sat down to rest in front of the Ashton waiting room.

“There’s Donner’s car now,” says Poppy, pointing to where the red sedan was parked at the curb, a few feet away. “I wonder what he’s doing over here.”

“A trip to the county seat isn’t anything unusual for a snappy little business man like him,” says I.

We met smarty face to face when we were getting off the car. And did he ever stare at us! I guess he thought we were lost. The poor fish! I wanted to make a face at him. But patterning after my dignified associate officer I marched to the sidewalk with my nose in the air. Nor did I turn and look back. I had the feeling, though, that the enemy had stopped in his tracks and was following us with puzzled, angry eyes.

Practically all of Ashton’s stores are on one long street, running north and south. So it didn’t take us very many minutes to size up the shoe-store situation.

“Let’s go in here,” says Poppy, stopping at a store in the middle of the block.

“There’s another shoe store across the street,” says I, pointing.

“This one is the biggest. So let’s start at the top and work down.”

A bald-headed man with two stomachs and three chins waddled into sight to wait on us.

“Is this Mr. Heckleberry?” says Poppy politely, remembering the name that was spread around on one of the store windows.

The wheezer seemed to tell at a glance that we weren’t regular shoe customers.

“Um . . .” he grunted. “What do you want?”

“Mr. Heckleberry,” says the head and brains of the Tutter Advertising Novelty Company, “what would you say if I were to tell you a trade secret that would enable you to get ninety-nine per cent of the juvenile shoe business in Ashton?”

The storekeeper hadn’t expected to hear any such speech as this.

“Huh? What’s that?” says he, showing his surprise.

“We have a scheme,” says Poppy, starting to unwind his selling sample, “that will fill your store with boy shoe customers. It’s a premium scheme. See? Seven-League Stilts! The greatest trade booster that the retail shoe business has ever known.”

The prospective stilt customer got so cold all of a sudden that the icicles came out all over him.

“Um. . . . I hain’t int’rested in trade boosters,” he scowled.

But Poppy kept right on.

“Seven-League Stilts!” says he, getting into high gear. “Red as an apple; light as a broom handle; strong as steel. Designed by boys for boys. See the workmanship! Why, any regular kid will be tickled pink to own a pair of stilts like these. And can a boy buy these stilts? No, sir! They aren’t on sale in any toy store. But Mr. Heckleberry has them! And he gives them away. With each shoe purchase of five dollars, a pair of stilts free. With each ten-dollar purchase, two pairs of stilts free. With each fifteen-dollar purchase—”

Br-r-r-r! There was an awful draft from the north pole.

“I tell you I hain’t int’rested in your stilts,” snapped old icicles. “So shet up an’ git out.”

But Poppy heroically stuck to the ship.

“If I were running a shoe store,” says he, “and some enterprising young advertising specialist came along with a clever scheme to help me sell more shoes, I think I would listen to him and profit by his advice.”

That brought out old roly-poly’s temper.

“I tell you I hain’t int’rested in your stilts,” he thundered. “So pack up your truck an’ git out of here, an’ do it quick.”

“Mr. Heckleberry,” says Poppy, with dignity, “it grieves me to see how very little confidence you have in boys. We certainly don’t amount to much in your estimation. I dare say that if this proposition of ours had been presented to you by a man you would have been interested in it. But, as presented to you by two ordinary-looking boys, you think it’s a bunch of junk. I sure do wish that you were better informed on boys. Really I do. Being a boy myself, I hesitate to tell you all the smart things we can do, because I wouldn’t want you to get the idea that I was trying to throw bouquets at myself. It is a fact, though, that outside of raising whiskers there isn’t anything a man can do that the average boy can’t do. ‘B’ stands for ‘boys,’ and it also stands for ‘business,’ which is just another way of saying that where you find live business you’re bound to find boys. Why, sir,” and there was a lot of arm flourishing now as the earnest orator opened wide the throttle of his gab, “boys are the very backbone of business. The only industries that boys don’t help to run are old men’s homes—and who wants to go to a place like that! As for having worth-while ideas, do you know, Mr. Speckleberry, that it was a boy who made the first practical steam engine self-operating? And it was a boy who—”

Here “Mr. Speckleberry” blew up.

“I don’t care a continental ’bout you an’ your confounded steam engines,” he roared. “An’ I hain’t int’rested in your stilts, nuther, as I’ve told you a dozen times. So git out of here before I throw you out.”

“Am I to conclude then,” says Poppy seriously, regarding the other in pained disappointment, “that it is your final and definite decision not to put this trade-boosting, business-building, money-making scheme of ours to work in your store?”

Old fatty started to dance a jig.

“If you say another word,” he shrieked, fanning the air with his fists, “I’ll wring your confounded neck. Git Out!”

“Yes,” came a familiar insolent voice from behind us, “git out and make room for somebody who knows how to talk business.”

The fat proprietor’s face lit up when he saw who was speaking, and, in a hurry to get to the welcome customer, he sort of heaved Poppy and me out of his way along with the other rubbish.

“Good mornin’, Mr. Donner,” says he, bowing and scraping. “I’ve bin lookin’ fur you an’ your pa fur the past two hours.”

“My father couldn’t come over this morning,” says Donner, after a sneering look at us. “However, you and I can talk business just the same. For my father knows what your stock is. And you know what we’re willing to pay.”

Old duck-foot purred like a cream-fed tomcat.

“Um. . . . Jest step into my office,” he invited. “This way, please.”

It was a cold turn-down for us, all right. And I bet you that the storekeeper’s fat ears burned at the mean things I said about him when we were in the street. But Poppy, mind you, was all smiles. Yes, sir, he was just as chipper as though he had gotten a million-dollar stilt order.

“Old dough-face!” says I, gritting my teeth.

“What’s the matter?” came the easy laugh. “Don’t you like Mr. Googleberry?”

“Like him?” I howled. “After the way he used us?”

“I love him,” purred Poppy.

What made our defeat the more humiliating to me was the thought that young Donner would blab it all over Tutter.

“Let’s go home,” says I, discouraged. “We’ll never get a stilt order in this town.”

“We’ll never get a stilt order in any town,” says Poppy quickly, “if we don’t work for it.”

I stared at him.

“Haven’t you had enough?” I growled, out of sorts with myself and with everybody else.

“Enough? Why, kid, I haven’t got started.”

“All the stilt orders we’ll get,” says I, “you can stick in a cat’s eye.”

But the other one was buried too deep in a new train of thought to pay any attention to me.

“Say, Jerry,” says he, after a moment, “did you notice what young Donner said?”

“What that bird says doesn’t interest me,” I growled.

“I bet a cookie that he and his father are going to buy out old fatty’s shoe stock. And if they do they’ll probably have a big sale. See? For they’ve done that in other towns near here.”

“Well, what of it?”

“Let’s suppose that we’re in the shoe business here. Donner comes in, and buying out our chief competitor, starts a big ‘clearing-out’ sale. Very well. What are we going to do?—sit still and let the other fellow flood the town with shoes? Or are we going to have a sale of our own?”

I caught on.

“You think the other shoe man will jump at our stilts?”

“I don’t know as he’ll jump at them,” came the grinning reply. “But if he happens to hint around that he’d like to buy a gross or two I guess we can accommodate him.”

I started across the street.

“Wait a minute,” the leader stopped me. “Let’s find out first of all if Mr. Speckleback, or whatever his name is, really intends selling his shoe stock to the Donners.”

“He’ll never tell you his business,” I grunted.

“Probably not. But there’s more than one way of finding out such things.”

Puzzled to know what the leader’s scheme was, I followed him down the street to the office of the local newspaper.

“I think I have some news for you,” was the way he got the attention of the spectacled man behind the counter.

“Yes?”

“Lawrence Donner, Jr., of the Donner Shoe Company of Tutter, is in town. I have reasons to believe that he and his father are intending to buy up the stock of the Heckleberry company.”

“Thanks for the tip,” says the man. “I’ll look into it.”

“If the deal goes through the Donner Company undoubtedly will put on a big sale here. So you ought to get some money out of them for newspaper advertising.”

The man’s face broke into a grin.

“And if I sell them a couple of pages,” he inquired in fun, “do I have to pay you a commission?”

“No,” says Poppy, shaking his head. “But you can do us a favor, if you will.”

The newspaper man laughed when he had been told who we were and what our scheme was.

“Boys in business, eh? Well! Well! This is something new in my experience. However,” he added seriously, “I can see no reason why you can’t succeed with your stilts—in a moderate way. Certainly you have my best wishes. And any time you’re in town drop in and see me.”

“What I wish you’d do for us,” says Poppy, “is to telephone to Mr. Heckleberry, as a reporter, and find out from him if the deal has gone through. If it has, we’ll get busy and call on the other shoe man.”

After a brief conversation over the telephone the newspaper man turned to Poppy with a grin.

“You were a good guesser,” says he. “Heckleberry tells me that he has sold his entire stock. And the big sale that you anticipated starts tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.”

“Thanks,” says Poppy warmly. Then he gripped my arm. “Come on, Jerry,” says he. “If we’re going to give young Donner’s wings another cropping we’ve got to snap into it. We haven’t a moment to spare.”