Bound to Succeed: or, Mail Order Frank's Chances

“What are you going to do next?” asked Frank, after his companion had walked around the tree two or three times, viewing its top speculatively the while, and whistling softly to himself.

“Well, the bag is safe for a time. I guess I’d better get to the nearest town and telegraph the boss. It will be a job getting the balloon out of that fix without further damage.”

“If you will rest a bit till I fix up a broken bicycle I have over yonder, I will pilot you to Greenville,” said Frank.

“Good for you,” commended the man, and he followed Frank to the spot where the wheel lay.

Frank set at work on the damaged bicycle. He now had the necessary tools and material at hand to fix it up. At the end of ten minutes he had the wheel in safe shape to roll it home, where he could repair it more permanently.

Meantime his companion rattled on volubly. He told Frank his name was Park Gregson. He was a sort of a “knockaround.” He had been with a circus, had fought Indians, had been major in the South African War, had circumnavigated the globe twice, in fact, a Jack-of-all-trades and master of none for over fifteen years.

“That balloon,” he explained, “belongs to a professional aeronaut. He hired me to help him. She’s a new one, that yonder. I was making a trial cruise. Professor Balmer, who owns her, is at Circleville. As I say, I must wire him to come and get her on her feet again.”

“You mean her wings?” suggested Frank.

“Exactly. Ready? No, you needn’t help me, I’m only a trifle bruised and stiff.”

Frank led the way townwards. He stopped at the house to put his bicycle away. Then he accompanied his companion to the railroad depot. Here Park Gregson wrote out a telegram and handed it to the operator.

“Expect an answer,” he observed. “I’ll call for it. No, send it to me. I say, Newton,” he addressed Frank with friendly familiarity, “where’s the best place to put up till the professor reports himself?”

“There’s a fairly good hotel here,” said Frank.

Gregson looked a trifle embarrassed for an instant. Then he laughed, saying.

“They’ll have to take me in penniless till the professor arrives.”

“That will be all right,” declared Frank. “I’ll vouch for you. But say, if you would be our guest at home, you will be very welcome.”

“And I will be very delighted to have your most entertaining company,” instantly replied Gregson. “I’ll make it all right when the boss comes.”

Frank was glad to offer this hospitality to his new chance acquaintance. The man interested him. Everything he talked about he covered in a vivid way that made his descriptions instructive. Already he had suggested some points to Frank that had set the latter thinking in new directions. The wide experience of the man was suggestive and valuable to Frank.

Park Gregson asked the telegraph operator to send any reply to his message to the Newton home, and accompanied Frank there.

As they neared the cottage a man in a gig came driving down the road. It was Dorsett.

He glared fiercely at Frank, and then bestowed an inquisitive, suspicious look upon the stranger.

Frank introduced Gregson to his mother, who prepared a lunch for him. Gregson was more shaken up than he had expressed, and was glad to lie down and rest in the neatly-furnished spare room of the cottage.

Frank had some odd chores to do about the village. When he came home again about six o’clock he found Gregson refreshed-looking and comfortably seated in the parlor reading a book.

They had a pleasant time at the supper table. Then they adjourned to the cozy little sitting-room. Christmas was allowed to stay in the house, and seemed to enjoy the animated ways of the balloonist as much as the others.

Park Gregson fairly fascinated them with the story of his travels and adventures in many countries.

“You see, I have been quite a rolling stone, Mrs. Ismond,” he said. “A harmless one, though.”

“Have you never thought of settling down to some regular occupation, sir?” suggested Frank’s mother.

“It’s not in me, madam, I fear,” declared the knockaround. “I did try it once, for a fact. Yes, I actually went into business.”

“What was the line, Mr. Gregson?” asked Frank.

“Mail order business.”

Frank showed by the expression of his face that the balloonist had struck a theme of great interest to him.

“I had a partner,” went on Gregson. “We advertised and sold sets of rubber finger tips to protect the hands of housewives when working about the house.”

“Was it a success?” inquired Frank.

“It was great – famous. The orders just rolled in. We made money hand over fist and spent it like water. One day, though, there came a stop to it all. A lawyer served an injunction on us. It seemed that the device was a French invention patented in this country. My partner sloped with most of the funds, leaving me stranded. All the same, it’s a great business – the mail order line.”

For over an hour Frank kept their guest busy answering a hundred earnest questions as to all the details of the mail order business.

When Gregson had retired for the night Frank sat silent and thoughtful in the company of his mother. Finally he said.

“Mother, Mr. Gregson’s talk has done me a lot of good.”

“I saw you were very much interested,” remarked Mrs. Ismond.

“Interested!” repeated Frank with vim, unable to control his restless spirit and getting up and pacing the room to and fro – “I am simply wild to go deeper into this mail order business. Why, it looks plain as day to me – the way to begin it – the way to exploit it – the way to make a great big success of it. He says that little metal novelties of the household kind take the best. I was just thinking: there’s a hardware novelties factory right on the spot at Pleasantville, and – Down, Christmas, down!”

The dog had interrupted Frank with a low growl. Then, before Frank could deter him, the animal flew at the open window of the sitting-room.

Frank seized Christmas by the collar, just as the animal was aiming to leap clear through it to the garden outside.

“Why, what is the matter, Christmas?” spoke Mrs. Ismond, arising to her feet in some surprise.

Just then a frightful shriek rang out from under the open window, accompanied by the frantic words:

“Help, murder, help – I’m nearly killed!”

CHAPTER VI

“MAIL ORDER FRANK”

At the outcry from beyond the window of the little sitting-room, the dog, Christmas, became fairly frantic. Seizing him by the collar, however, Frank gave him a stern word. Wont to obey, the animal retreated to one side of the room, but still growling, and his fur bristling.

Frank instantly caught up the lamp from the table and carried it to the window. His mother peered out in a startled way at the scene now illuminated without.

“Why, it is Mr. Dorsett!” she exclaimed.

“As I expected,” said Frank, quietly.

“Frank,” murmured his mother, anxiously, “what have you been doing?”

“Preparing for eavesdroppers – and sneaks. Caught one first set of the trap, it seems,” responded Frank in clear, loud tones.

The captured lurker was indeed Dorsett. He was panting and infuriated. One foot was held imprisoned in a wooden spring clamp chained to a log in a hole in the ground. This aperture had been covered with light pieces of sod which Dorsett was pushing aside with his cane, while he continued to groan with pain.

The lamplight enabled him to discern more clearly the trap that had caught him. He managed to pull one side of the contrivance loose and got his foot free.

Wincing with pain and limping, he came closer to the window, boiling with rage.

“So you did it, and boast of it, do you?” he howled at Frank.

“I did and do,” answered Frank calmly. “This is our home, Mr. Dorsett, not a public highway.”

Dorsett uttered a terrific snort of rage. He brandished his cane, struck out with it, and its end went through the panes of both the upper and the raised lower sash.

Frank receded a step, unhurt, with the words:

“Very well. You will pay for that damage, I suppose you know. You will get no further rent until you repair it.”

“Rent!” roared the frenzied Dorsett. “You’ll never pay me rent again. I’ll show you. Tenants at will, ha! Can’t stroll around my own property, hey? Why, I’ll – I’ll crush you.”

“Mr. Dorsett,” spoke up the widow in a dignified tone, “it is true this is your property, but you have no right to spy upon us. You took away our dog – ”

“Who says so – who says so?” shouted the infuriated man.

“Christmas himself will say so in an unmistakable manner if I let him loose at you,” answered Frank. “The poundmaster at Riverton might be a credible witness, also.”

“You’ll pay for this, oh, but you’ll pay for this!” snarled the wretched old man as he limped away to the street.

Mrs. Ismond sank to a chair, quite pale and agitated over the disturbing incident of the moment.

“Frank,” she said in a fluttering tone, “that man alarms me. It makes me uneasy to think he is lurking about us all the time. I am unhappy to think we are subject to his caprices, where once he owned the property.”

“We own it yet, by rights,” declared Frank. “Some day I may prove it to Dorsett. But do not worry, mother. You must have guessed from my interest in what Mr. Gregson said to-night, that I believe there is something for me in this mail order idea. I have not yet formed my plans, but I am going to get into business for myself.”

The boy heard their guest stirring about up stairs, probably aroused by the window smashing. He reassured Gregson and went to bed himself.

Frank lay awake until nearly midnight thinking over all that Gregson had told him. He went mentally through every phase of the mail order idea that he knew anything about.

When Frank finally fell asleep it was to dream of starting in business for himself. At broad daylight he was in a big factory which his own endeavors had built up. Around him were his busy employes nailing up great boxes of merchandise ordered from all parts of the country.

The sound of the hammers seemed still echoing in his ears as he was aroused by the voice of his mother from her own room.

“Frank! Frank!” she called.

“Yes, mother,” he answered, springing out of bed.

“Some one is knocking at the front door.”

“Knocking?” repeated Frank, hurrying into his clothes. “That’s no knocking, it sounds more like hammering.”

Christmas was barking furiously. The hammering had ceased by the time Frank had got down the stairs and to the front door. He unlocked it quickly.

At the end of the graveled walk, just turning into the street was old Dorsett. He waved a hammer in his hand malignantly as he noticed Frank.

“We’ll see if I am to have free range of my own premises,” he shouted. “Young man, you get your traps out of here within the time limit of the law, or I’ll throw you into the street, bag and baggage.”

Frank saw that Dorsett had just nailed a square white sheet of paper across the door panel. He stood reading it over as his mother came out onto the porch.

“Was that Mr. Dorsett, Frank?” she inquired.

“Yes, some more of his friendly work.”

“What is it, Frank?”

“A five-days’ notice to quit,” answered Frank.

Mrs. Ismond scanned the legal document with a pale and troubled face. Frank affected unconcern and indifference.

“Don’t let that worry you, mother,” he said, leading her back into the house.

“But, Frank, he can put us out!”

“If we stay to let him, probably. The law he has invoked to rob us, may also enable him to evict us, mother, but he won’t win in the end. You say you dislike the place. Very well, we will move.”

“But where to, Frank?”

“This isn’t the only house in Greenville, is it, mother?” asked Frank, smiling reassuringly. “What’s more, Greenville isn’t the only town in creation. Stop your fretting, now. I’ve got a grand plan, and I am sure to carry it out. Just leave everything to me. My head is just bursting with all the ideas that interesting balloonist has put into it. Why, mother, if I can only get a start, if I can get hold of a few novelties and do a little advertising – ”

“Oh, Frank, it takes money to do all that!”

“And brains. Mostly brains and industry, Mr. Gregson says. Mother, now or soon, here, at Greenville or somewhere else, I am determined to give the mail order idea a trial.”

“Mail order, Frank?”

“Capital! excellent!” cried Frank with enthusiasm. “Why, mother, you have suggested the very catchy name. I will use to advertise by – ‘Mail Order Frank’!”

CHAPTER VII

STRICTLY BUSINESS

The balloonist, Park Gregson, needed rest after his strenuous experience of the previous day, so Frank did not disturb him. He and his mother had their breakfast together, then Frank started out on his usual daily round of duties.

He did his chores about the house. Then he went down to the eight o’clock train to get a bundle of daily newspapers from the city. These he delivered to his regular customers. At nine o’clock he went to the office of Mr. Beach, the lawyer.

Frank was informed by the attorney’s clerk that Mr. Beach had left Greenville to see a distant client. He would not be back for two days.

“I need somebody’s advice about this five-day notice of Mr. Dorsett,” reflected Frank, and proceeded to visit the insurance man, Mr. Buckner.

“Good!” exclaimed the latter briskly, as Frank put in an appearance, “I was just about to send for you.”

“To send for me?” repeated Frank.

“Yes, I told you that you might expect some further business commissions from me, you remember?”

“Yes, Mr. Buckner.”

“Well, they have materialized. Can you give me your time unrestrictedly for a week or ten days?”

“Why – yes, I think so,” answered Frank, but somewhat slowly, for he thought of their family complications.

Mr. Buckner was a keen-witted man. He read something under the surface in Frank’s hesitancy.

“Something troubling you, Frank?” he suggested.

“Oh, nothing serious, Mr. Buckner. It seems we have offended Mr. Dorsett. He is our landlord. He has ordered us to leave the house we rent from him within five days.”

“Hum, the old curmudgeon! His house! I wonder whose it would be if some of his clever rascality was investigated?”

“Well, I suppose we have got to go,” said Frank. “He is ugly and determined.”

“Oh, that difficulty can be easily solved,” declared Mr. Buckner, lightly. “You know the vacant store front on Cedar street? I am agent for that property, owner a non-resident. There are five nice, comfortable living rooms upstairs. It’s only two blocks’ move for you. If it suits you, make the move. You need pay no rent until you decide where you wish to locate permanently.”

“You are very kind,” said Frank.

“Why – never thought of it!” exclaimed Mr. Buckner, with new animation of manner and voice. “The very thing, it exactly fits!”

“What do you mean?” inquired Frank.

“Sit down, and I’ll explain. You took a check yesterday to pay for some salvage at a fire at Riverton.”

“Yes, sir,” nodded Frank.

“I notified my client last night by telegraph of our success. He’s a Lancaster man, in the hardware line. He ran up to Greenville last evening to see me. It seems that Morton, the man burned out at Riverton, was also in the hardware line. Everything he had was burned up in the fire. When they came to clear the wreck, they found all the metal stock he carried massed in among the ashes in the cellar. The insurance company had it put in big packing cases. It was all mixed up, some of the stock damaged entirely. My client, however, decided that it might net him a profit on the two hundred dollars he paid for it.”

“I see,” said Frank.

“What he has engaged me to do, is to go or send to Riverton and get the stuff carted over here. Then he wants the rubbish gone over, and the good stuff selected and sorted out. It seems that Morton had been neglecting his regular hardware business for some time. He invented an apple corer that wouldn’t core very well. He bought a lot of little stuff, such as initial buttons, needles and the like, and was trying to get into the mail order business, when the fire came along.”

“The mail order business?” said Frank in a quick breath.

“Yes. Now he’s going to take his insurance money and buy an interest in some publishing business in the city. Well, you can see that a little time and care may result in picking out quite a lot of really valuable stuff from the mass, brushing it up and all that.”

“Yes, indeed,” murmured Frank.

“We can store the plunder in the Cedar Street building. You take charge of it, hire what help you need, and I’ll divide with you what I charge my client for my services. Pretty liberal, ain’t I now, Frank?” asked Mr. Buckner, with a smile. “You doing all the work, and me getting a full half of the pay.”

“Yes, but you are the directing genius of the affair, you know,” suggested Frank pleasantly.

“Oh, I can direct all right, if you will do the hustling,” laughed the insurance man. “Settled, is it? All right. My client thinks it will take a week or ten days to sort the stuff into some kind of shape. He’ll be here to inspect progress next Saturday. You make your arrangements, and draw five dollars a day.”

Frank was quite stunned at the munificent offer.

“I trust you implicitly, Frank,” went on his kind friend. “Here is a letter to the custodian of the property at Riverton, and here is twenty dollars to carry around with you to meet any expense that may come up. Hire the moving teams as cheaply as you can, store the boxes at the Cedar Street place. I leave the details entirely to you. When can you start in?”

“Right now,” replied Frank promptly.

“All right, get into action.”

Frank was proud and pleased as he hurried back home. He did not let the grass grow under his feet, but neither did he go off in a wild tangent that might disorder things. He was all business and system.

First, he reported to his mother. They decided to move at once. Then he sought out Nelson Cady, a close chum, and commissioned him to look after his evening paper route and other odd jobs he did daily. Frank decided he could save money by hiring home talent to do the moving of the salvage stuff. He was not much acquainted at Riverton. The teamsters there might be extortionate, as it was a double trip for the wagons.

Within an hour’s time Frank had made an excellent bargain, and all interested were duly satisfied with the arrangement. An honest old negro named Eben Johnson, who carted ashes and other refuse for the town, was not doing much that especial day. He agreed to lease his two teams and one driver for twelve hours for seven dollars and the keep of man and horses.

Frank knew he could make no more economical arrangement than this. By eleven o’clock he was on the way to Riverton, acting himself as driver of one of the teams.

The driver of the other team was a good-natured though rather shiftless fellow, named Boyle. When they reached Riverton, Frank took him to a restaurant, gave him the best meal he had ever eaten, and made the fellow his friend for life. The horses were given a first class feed and a good rest.

Frank found he had to handle eight immense packing cases and one zinc box. This latter was full of books and papers. These went to the purchaser, it seemed, along with the “good will” of the business.

The eight packing cases were tremendously heavy. A glance at their contents showed Frank a confused jumble. There were hammers and hatchets with their handles burned off, saws and chisels, blackened, and some of them burned out of shape by the fire. There were nails, tacks, hinges, keys, door knobs, in fact a confusing mass of mixed hardware of every description.

Frank and his man could not handle four of the cases alone. The lad had to hire a couple of men to help them load these onto the wagons. As they got all ready to start for home, the custodian came up with a little wizened man with a Jewish cast of countenance, and introduced him as Mr. Moss.

“There’s a lot of junk not worth carting away over at the ruins,” explained the custodian to Frank. “This man wants to buy it.”

“All right,” said Frank, “let him make an offer.”

“Mein frient, two dollars would be highway robbery for dot oldt stuff,” asserted the junk dealer, with a characteristic shrug of his shoulders.

“Is that your offer, Mr. Moss?” asked Frank in a business-like tone.

“I vill gif it chust to spite oldt Isaacs, my combetitor,” declared Moss.

“Well, we will go and take a look at the stuff,” said Frank.

“Mein frient, dot vos useless,” insisted Moss. “Time ish monish. Tree tollars!”

“No,” said Frank definitely. “I always calculate to know what I’m about.”

He left the wagons, and accompanied by Moss soon reached the blackened ruins of the hardware store.

Just as they arrived there, a shrewd-faced little urchin approaching them halted, and gave both a keen look.

“Hoo!” he yelled – “I must tell vader!”

Moss threw his cane after the disappearing urchin, and looked perturbed and anxious.

“Dot vos de stuff,” he explained, pointing out two cindery piles back of the ruins.

“Why,” said Frank, poking in and out among the debris, “there is quite a heap of it.”

“Ashes, mein frient, ashes,” suavely observed the junk dealer.

“Not at all,” retorted Frank. “Here is a stove, all but the top. Here are a lot of hoes and rakes, twisted a little, but not entirely worthless. Both heaps are nearly all solid metal. There must be over a ton of iron here.”

“Four tollars – I tell you vot I do: four tollars,” said Moss fervently.

Frank shook his head and continued to look calculatingly at the blackened heaps.

“Five tollars,” spoke Moss with sudden unction. “Mein tear younug frient – cash. Say nodings. Dere vos de monish.”

But Frank looked resolutely away from the bank note tendered as a near shout rang out.

A stout, clumsy man had come lumbering around the corner at his best gait, in a frantic state of excitement.

He was in his shirt sleeves, drenched with perspiration and waving his arms wildly. Beside him ran the urchin Frank had before noticed. It was apparent that he had succeeded in satisfying his father that a sale of the fire debris was on.

“Mishter, Mishter,” he called, “it is Ezekiels Isaacs. I vill puy de goods. How mooch is offered?”

“Five dollars so far,” repeated Frank tranquilly.

“Six,” instantly bolted out the newcomer.

“Seven!” snarled Moss.

“Ten tollars,” pronounced the other, pulling out a fat pocketbook.

“Gentlemen,” said Frank. “I have made up my mind. You must start your real bids at double that, or I cannot entertain an offer.”

“Yesh,” cried Moss eagerly – “twenty tollars.”

“Und a kee-varter!” howled his rival.

“Un a hal-luf!”

“Tage it!” roared Moss, waving his cane in impotent rage, and turned away disgusted.

“Of course you gif me four per cent. discount for cash?” demanded the successful bidder.

“Of course I shall not,” dissented Frank. “Shall I call back Mr. Moss? No? Thanks, – that is correct, twenty dollars and fifty cents. Here is a receipt.”

Frank felt that he had closed an exceptionally good sale. Within half-an-hour the wagons were started on their way for Greenville.

CHAPTER VIII

A STEP FORWARD

The return trip took three hours. It was just five o’clock when the wagons drew up in front of the store front building on Cedar Street, in Greenville.

A man whom Mr. Buckner had hired was sweeping out the place. With his aid and that of another helper, the big packing cases were stowed in the main floor room as Frank wanted them.

Frank had just paid off the two outsiders, when the man he had leased the wagons from drove up in a light vehicle. He was all smiles. He looked over the horses and turned to Frank.

“Mistah Newton, sah,” he observed, “the mussiful man am kind to his beast. Ah see dem hosses in good trim, sah, and am obleeged. Sah, you am a good-luck boy. Like to hire you as my manager, sah, ef I had enough money. Ha! Ha!”

“Where does the good luck come in, Mr. Johnson?” inquired Frank smilingly.

“Ah tell you ’bout dat, sah. Logic am logic. Theyfoh, it follows ef I’d gone up to dat no-good, cheap hauling for de lumbah comp’ny I’d been out five dollahs, ’cause you paid me seben, ’sides having de hosses worked to death. Again, sah, de suckamstance am dis: I happened to be in town when a stranger gen’man came ’long and hiahed me to drive him into de woods. Got another gen’man from your house. I helped dem get a b’loon down from a tree, load it on de wagon and took it to de train. One ob de gen’mans knew you ’ticularly, sah.”