CHAPTER II
PARTNERS CONFER

Alton Academy commenced its Fall Term on September 24th that year, and on the afternoon of the nineteenth Russell Emerson dropped from the train at Alton Station, a battered valise in hand, and, disregarding the cordial invitations of carriage and taxi drivers, set forth on foot. It appears to be a New England custom to locate the railroad station as far as possible from the center of the town, and Alton had made no departure from custom. A good half-mile intervened between station and business center, and a second half-mile between the heart of the town and Alton Academy. There had been a time when Alton and Alton Station had been two quite distinct settlements, but now the town had followed the route of the trolley and the two were slenderly connected by a line of small dwellings, small shops and, occasionally, a small factory. Russell followed the trolley tracks and, although presently a car came rattling and whisking toward him from the direction of the station, continued on foot, the valise growing heavier as the stores became more important and more prosperous in appearance. But the boy rested frequently, always before one of the little stores, and at such times the valise was set down beside him on the pavement while his gaze roved from door to window and when possible penetrated past the usually unattractive display of goods into the further dim recesses of the building. Oddly, as it would seem, his pauses were longer and his interest greater when the window was empty of goods and a placard announced the premises for rent. Indeed, on three occasions he crossed the street to peer up at and into tenantless stores, and on two occasions he jotted down memoranda on the back of an envelope ere he took up his burden and went on.

Reaching the busier and more populous part of Alton, he turned to the left, past the town’s single department store, and halted under a sign which read: “Hartford House – Gentlemen Only – One Flight.” Russell pushed open the door and climbed the stairs. The office was at the left of the landing, a clean, sun-filled room through whose broad windows one might look down on the traffic of the street or watch, if one cared to, the casements across the way, beyond which a tailor, a Painless Dentist and a manufacturing jeweler plied their trades. At the desk, presided over by an elderly man with abundant gray whiskers, Russell set his name down in an ink-smeared register, paid the sum of seventy-five cents and was presented with a key.

“Eighteen,” said the clerk wheezily. “One flight, turn to the left. Thank you.”

Acting as his own bell-boy, Russell took himself and his luggage to the second floor, found the door numbered 18 and took possession of a very small, barely furnished room which had, nevertheless, the merit of cleanliness. He ran the shade up, opened the window and found himself looking down on the roof of the Imperial Steam Laundry, as a bold inscription painted on the corrugated iron roof informed him. Beyond the laundry were the brick backs of several office buildings.

“Not much of a view,” murmured Russell tolerantly, “but plenty of air. Now let’s see.” He stripped off his coat and placed it, with a somewhat yellowed straw hat, on the narrow bed. Then, rolling up his sleeves, he poured water into the chipped basin and washed face and hands. That done, he dried on a wispy towel and opened his valise. From it he extracted a thin bundle of papers held together by an elastic band, placed a chair before the window and seated himself, lodging his feet comfortably on the ledge. For the next ten minutes he was busy looking through the contents of the bundle. That completed, he brought forth a fountain pen from a pocket and began to figure thoughtfully on the back of one of the papers.

“Eighty-eight, sixty in bank,” he muttered as he set down that sum. “Check for one hundred and twenty-five. Fifteen and – ” He paused and counted the contents of a small leather purse. “Fifteen and seventy-four. It’ll cost me three dollars for my room here for four days and, say, four dollars for meals. That’s seven dollars. Then there’ll be incidentals. Guess I’ll say ten altogether. Ten, seventy-four rather. That leaves five. Now then. Naught, six, eight and one to carry, one – two hundred and eighteen dollars and sixty cents.”

He gazed for a long minute at the result of his figuring and finally shook his head. “That isn’t nearly enough,” he sighed. “Maybe, though, Stick can do better than he thought he could. If he can put in two hundred more I guess we can manage.” He looked at his watch. “Ought to be here in an hour. Guess I’ll go out and have a look around before he gets here.”

He put his coat on again and took his hat and sallied forth, stopping at the office long enough to leave his key and to inform the clerk that he would be back at five o’clock, in case any one should inquire for him. Then for the better part of an hour he roamed the streets in that portion of Alton which lay between the Hartford House and the Academy, specializing on the side streets but not neglecting such important arteries of traffic and avenues of trade as Meadow and West and State streets. He was back at a minute or two before five and had made himself comfortable in one of the six wooden armchairs that stood empty in a row before the windows when feet echoed on the stairway, the office door was pushed open and a very tall, very thin youth appeared. He carried a suit-case, an overcoat and an umbrella, all of which, perceiving Russell across the room, he dumped on the desk before stepping to meet him.

“Hello, Rus,” he greeted. “How long have you been here? Have you got a room? Do I bunk in with you, or – ”

“You’ll have to get one of your own,” replied Russell as they shook hands. “Mine’s just a single one. Guess they all are. How are you, Stick? Haven’t fattened up much this summer.”

“I’m very well, thanks. Wait till I register and we’ll go up and have a talk. Got your letter about ten minutes before I left. Thought you were dead or something.”

In a room very similar to that assigned to Russell, the two seated themselves, George Patterson on the bed and Russell on the single chair. Stick, as he was called, was a boy of Russell’s own age, which was seventeen, but looked fully a year older. He came from St. Albans, Vermont, according to the school catalogue, and the catalogue was quite infallible on such subjects, but before that Stick had lived – in fact had been born – in Toronto, and there was much more of the Canadian than the Yankee in him. He was extremely tall and extremely thin, with high cheek bones, a good deal of color, very dark brown hair that curled, gray eyes, a generous nose and a rather large mouth. You couldn’t call him handsome, but he looked particularly healthy and clean and wholesome. One of the things that Russell liked most about him was his appearance of having just stepped out of a bath, and even now, after a long train journey, that appearance persisted. The two were room-mates in Upton Hall. They had been thrown together quite by accident the preceding fall and had not yet regretted the fact; which, I think, speaks well for each of them.

Stick wasn’t an awfully brilliant chap. In fact, there were some who declared that he was rather a bore. But Russell was used to him, and he had long since decided that an even temper and similar attributes were preferable in a room-mate to mere conversational scintillations. Stick had rather a peculiar sense of humor, or, perhaps, lack of humor. He adored a practical joke when it was on some one else, but saw no fun in such a joke played on himself. As a fair sample of his ideal in the way of a funny story it may be stated that his favorite was a rather long and ponderous tale about a London window-washer who fell from the sixth story of a building and landed on a “bobby.” To Stick there was something irresistibly appealing to his sense of humor in the fact that the policeman was killed and the window-washer wasn’t! But Stick was a fellow who wore remarkably well, and, after all, that’s a fine quality in a room-mate.

“Well, I brought the money,” he announced after a few exchanges of remarks anent the past vacation.

“How much?” asked Russell anxiously.

“A hundred and twenty-five.”

“A hundred and twent – But, Stick, you said it would be a hundred and fifty at least!”

“I didn’t say it positively,” disclaimed the other. “I did think I could put in that much, Rus, but – well, I just can’t do it.” Then, after a short pause, he added in a desire to be strictly truthful: “I mean, I don’t think I ought to, Rus. Of course, it’s my money, and all that, but father doesn’t think very well of the idea, and if he needed money some time he’d expect me to let him have a little, and if I put it all into this I won’t have any left. You see, we don’t know for certain that this thing’s going to be a go. I hope it will be, for I’d hate to lose that money, but there’s nothing sure about it, is there?”

Russell shook his head. “No, nothing’s sure until it’s happened, Stick, but this thing is bound to go all right. Gee, it’s just got to!”

“Yes, I know,” Stick agreed without much enthusiasm, “but things don’t always succeed because some one says they’ve got to.”

Russell sighed. “I wish your grandmother hadn’t married a Scotsman, Stick!”

“What’s that got to do with – ”

“You’ll die a poor man, Stick, just on that account,” returned his chum gloomily. “Left to itself, the Irish in you would risk a dollar now and then, but that Scotch blood sets up a howl every time.”

“It’s all right to take a chance,” said Stick seriously, “but there’s no sense in being risky. I say, with what you have, won’t a hundred and twenty-five do?”

“It will have to,” answered Russell grimly, “if that’s all you’ll come in with. I’ve gone too far now to back down. I spent a whole day in New York, and every one was mighty decent, and I arranged for a whole raft of stuff to come down the twenty-second. The Proctor-Farnham people even offered me ninety days’ credit. You see, their goods are new in the East, Stick, and they’re making a big try to get them going. They make mighty good stuff, too, and I’m pretty certain we can sell a lot of it once we’re started. Of course we’ll have to carry the other makes, too. Some fellows won’t look at a thing unless they grew up with it! Well, anyway, they were quite enthusiastic about the scheme and would have pretty near stocked us up for nothing if I’d agreed to sell only their stuff. But that wouldn’t do. Not yet, anyhow. They offered to send a man down to arrange a window display, but I had to decline that, for I didn’t want them to know that we hadn’t even found a store yet. They might have thought I was crazy. As it was I did a good deal of bluffing, I guess, and talked as if I had about a million dollars. The other folks were a heap more haughty, although they were willing enough to let us have a fair line of samples. They don’t have to offer inducements to sell their goods, you see. Well, now about the money, Stick. I’ve got a little more than two hundred. That’s three hundred and twenty-five, about three hundred and forty, really. I’d hoped for four hundred at least. It means that we’ll have to be satisfied with a more modest store, for it’s store rent that’s going to be the principal expense for a while. I’ve been pretty well over the town, Stick. There are two places I’d love to have, but they’re both on West street and the rent would be something awful. Then there are a couple of places out on the way to the station. They’d be cheap enough, but I guess we might just as well throw our money away as locate out there. Fellows never get that far from school.”

“No, we’ve got to be somewhere around Bagdad,” replied Stick. Bagdad was the Academy name for the two blocks on West street lying nearest to the school. Here was established a small shopping district quite distinct from that further in the town, one depending largely, though by no means wholly, on the students for trade. The stores that lined both sides of the street were usually small, but, in the parlance of trade, “select.” One found neckties of a rather more “zippy” coloring here, hats with a more rakish air, shoes with more character, clothing that bordered yet did not infringe on the sporty. And, of course, the stationery store carried the sort of books and blanks and binders and pens that Alton Academy affected, while The Mirror specialized in such highly colored and ultra sweet concoctions of ice cream and syrups, fruits and nuts as are beloved of all preparatory school youths everywhere. Bagdad, in short, provided for so many of the wants of Alton students that only once in a blue moon was it necessary for them to seek further afield.

“Yes,” Russell agreed, “but I don’t believe we can find anything very close that we can afford to take. There’s one place – ”

He broke off to look thoughtfully across at Stick.

“Well?” prompted the latter.

“It’s upstairs, over The Parisian Tailors, on West street. But I don’t like the idea, Stick. You know yourself that a chap won’t climb a flight of stairs if he can find the same thing by walking a block or two further. And there’s Crocker’s store only five doors beyond. I guess that wouldn’t do.”

“Let’s go and have another look,” suggested Stick. “There must be some place we can have. We’ve got an hour before we need to eat, Rus. What do you say?”

“All right, but there’s no use going to Bagdad. We might try River street below West.”

“Huh, no fellow ever sets foot over there! I say, I’ve got it!”

“Shoot, then, Stick.”

“We’ll hire half a store from some one who doesn’t need it!”

“Why, yes, that might do,” replied Russell slowly, “but where are we going to find it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we can’t, but it’s an idea, isn’t it? Something to work on, eh? Let’s go and have a look.”