Russell was spared an answer, for just then Jimmy appealed to him. “That’s right, isn’t it, Rus? If it wasn’t for football these fellows would be prying up asphalt or laying sewer pipes, wouldn’t they? We have to earn money to keep their old hockey teams and basket ball teams going. Yes, and pay for the crew and the baseball nine, too!”

“Not by a long shot,” exclaimed Cal. “Leave the Nine out of it, Jimmy. We’ve paid our own way for many a season, old scout!”

“Pooh! Made expenses, maybe, but you generally have to come a-borrowing from the old sock every spring.”

“Well, we pay it back, son.”

“You fellows have to have too many bats and gloves and fancy fixings,” continued Jimmy. “And you wear too good clothes, too. I’ll bet it costs you a fortune to outfit every spring, and—”

“Listen to him!” exploded Cal. “Great Guns, what does it cost to run a football team?”

“That’s different,” laughed Jimmy. “A football team’s worth while, Cal. Besides, when it comes to that, those uniforms you fellows wear cost more than a football suit, I’ll bet.”

“Rot!”

“Well, what do they cost? Come on, now. Let’s hear.”

“I don’t know, you idiot. We get ’em by the bunch. Maybe eight dollars, maybe nine.”

“Can you beat that?” Jimmy appealed to the company. “Captain of the Nine and doesn’t know what his uniforms cost him!”

“That’s not my business, you chump. That’s up to the managers. I’ve got enough to look after—”

“Well, here’s a fellow can tell us.” Jimmy turned to Russell. “What do those uniforms cost, Rus, per uniform? You ought to know.”

Russell smiled and shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t. You can pay almost any price for a three-piece uniform, from six dollars up to twelve. It depends on how many you buy, of course, and on quality, too.”

“Are you an authority on the subject, Emerson?” asked Greenwood.

Russell shook his head. “No, not at all,” he answered.

“You’re an awful bluffer, Jimmy,” laughed Cal.

“Not a bit,” denied Jimmy stoutly. “Rus sells uniforms and he ought to know the prices of ’em better than we do. It’s his busi—”

“Oh!” exclaimed Cal. “You’re the Emerson who has the store on West street! Of course! I missed that. Yes, you must know something about baseball togs. Football togs, too, eh? Well, tell us, then, which outfit costs the most, Emerson.”

“Football,” answered Russell, smiling. “There’s more wool. Football togs have to be better because they get harder use.”

“There you are!” exclaimed Cal, in triumph. Russell noted that Coolidge and Greenwood were observing him with new interest.

“I still maintain,” said Jimmy, with great dignity, “that one of the suits you fellows wear costs more than my football outfit. I got my jersey for nothing, from a chap who was leaving school—”

“It looks it,” breathed Coolidge.

“That’s not the point,” said Cal. “Every one knows you’re such a miser you wouldn’t buy anything. We were discussing new uniforms, and Emerson says himself—”

“Say, Emerson, what’s a hockey shirt w-w-worth?” asked Bob Coolidge.

“I can’t say. We haven’t stocked any yet. I’ll find out for you, though, if you want me to.”

Coolidge shook his head. “Thanks, no, it doesn’t matter. I just wondered.”

“Bet you Rus can sell you shirts and whole outfits, too, for that matter, less than you paid for them last year,” announced Jimmy. “You fellows always get stuck when you send to New York.”

“It’s not my funeral,” said Greenwood, with a shrug. “Let the manager worry.”

Coolidge, however, seemed impressed. “I don’t know about that, B-B-Bob,” he said earnestly. “We’d ought to get th-th-things as cheap as p-p-p-possible.”

“You ought, but you don’t,” jeered Jimmy. “You pay any price you’re asked, and then go broke before the end of the season and have to dig into the old Ath. Com. stocking. Say, why don’t you give Emerson a chance this year? Let him bid on the stuff. Might as well hand the profit to one of our own crowd as send it on to some guy you don’t know in New York. That applies to you, too, Cal.”

Cal pursed his lips. “Why, we usually buy a goodish lot, Jimmy; new uniforms all through, bats, balls, a raft of stuff; I’m afraid Emerson couldn’t handle our business.”

“Why couldn’t he?” demanded Jimmy. “Of course he could, you chump! Besides, the uniforms would fit a blamed sight better than they did last year if he took the fellows’ measurements. This thing of sending the size of your waist and the number collar you wear and expecting to get a decently fitting suit gets my goat! And as for your bats and all the other lumber you have to have to play your absurd game, why, Emerson could sell you those better and cheaper than the New York folks, I’ll bet. Besides, you could see what you were getting, which is something you don’t do now.”

“Well, I’m not throwing off on Emerson,” replied Cal, throwing a kindly glance toward that youth, “but, unless I’m mistaken, Jimmy, they tried getting their outfits here in town several years ago and it didn’t work. If I were—”

“Course it didn’t work,” interrupted Jimmy scornfully. “They went to Crocker’s. Every fellow knows that Crocker’s stuff is punk. I mean his sporting goods. Maybe he keeps good nails and—”

“I bought a fielder’s glove there last spring,” began Stanley eagerly. But Cal groaned and Jimmy threatened his roommate with the empty candy box.

“I oughtn’t to have introduced the subject,” continued Jimmy sadly. “I might have known Stan would try to tell about his old glove—”

“‘Old’ is right,” muttered Stanley gloomily.

“I th-th-think Jimmy’s right,” declared Coolidge. “No reason why we sh-sh-shouldn’t pat-pat-pat—”

“Stop talking Irish, Bob,” said Greenwood. “Are you going to have basket ball stuff, Emerson?”

“Yes, we’ll have a pretty complete line by the first of December, or a little before. I’d like to have you come in and let me show you, Greenwood. We’re agent here for the Proctor and Farnham Company, and their basket balls are certainly corkers.”

“Never heard of them,” said Sid Greenwood unenthusiastically. “We’ve always used—”

“He’s got the other makes, too,” assured Jimmy. “But if those P. and F. folks make as good a basket ball as they do a football, I advise you to tie to them. I’ll bet even you could shoot a basket with one of those balls, Sid!”

Greenwood grinned. “I’d surely like to see one of them,” he said. “I’ll drop around some time, Emerson, and have a talk. Of course, it’s the manager’s place to do the buying, but I dare say I could get him to consider your stuff. There’s no special reason, so far as I can see, for sending to New York for things if we can get them just as good in town.”

“Say,” said Stanley, after a long silence, “why not start a Home Consumption League, if that’s what they’re called? We fellows represent four of the school sports, and here’s Emerson and his pal trying to make a little coin out of a store in the village that sells just the stuff we buy. Let’s see if we can’t—can’t head some trade his way. What do you say? It took pluck to start that store, I guess, and we all like pluck. Seems to me he deserves to win out. And he can’t fail to if he gets the school trade. Of course, there wouldn’t be any favoritism about it. He’d have to make as good prices as New York, and sell as good stuff, but I dare say he could do it, eh, Emerson?”

Thus appealed to, Russell nodded, smiling rather seriously. “I’m quite sure we can supply just as good stuff, including uniforms, as can be bought in New York, and I think we can sell a little cheaper. How much cheaper I don’t know now, but enough to be worth considering, I’d say. Besides that, there’d be no express to pay, for I’d deliver the goods right to you.”

“S-s-sounds reasonable,” declared Coolidge.

“And,” continued Russell, “I don’t need to tell you fellows that if we had the job of outfitting some of the teams we’d be certain of making a go of that business. We don’t ask any favors, or expect any, but I guess we can prove that we can sell just as high quality goods and just as cheaply as any New York house can. We’d be mighty glad of a chance, anyway.”

“F-f-fair enough,” exclaimed Coolidge. “Far as I’m c-c-concerned—”

“Look here, Jimmy,” said Cal, prodding that youth to attention with his shoe, “did you get us here to—to work this scheme for Emerson?”

“Get you here!” replied Jimmy indignantly. “Why, you poor fish, who asked you around, anyway?”

“Well, Bob and Sid, then. I know you didn’t say anything to me about it. But I suspect—”

“Go on and suspect,” said Jimmy, virtuously. “I had no idea that you were coming here this evening. If you don’t believe that—”

“You asked me, though,” said Greenwood, grinning.

“M-m-me, too,” said Coolidge. “Not that I m-m-mind, because—”

“Oh, well, I don’t mind fessing up,” Jimmy broke in, “now that you fellows have taken the bait. I did ask Sid and Bob—Rus, too, of course with the notion of getting something started. Your arrival, Cal, was as unforeseen as—er—pleasing. There’s nothing to apologize for. Rus is a good sort and needs to make a success of that store over there. We can help him. So let’s do it. Any objections?”

“Of course not,” said Cal, laughing. “I’ll do what I can to steer some business to him. I don’t make any promises, for our management have been buying in New York for some time and aren’t likely to make a change. Still, I’ll do my best.”

“We don’t buy much new stuff,” said Sid Greenwood, “but I guess I can promise Emerson that he shall have what trade there is.”

“Thanks,” murmured Russell. He was finding the situation just a bit embarrassing in spite of the evident good-will of the fellows.

“And that g-g-goes for me, too,” announced Coolidge earnestly. “I’ll see Nagle to-morrow and b-b-bully him into g-g-giving you a ch-ch-ch—”

“Spoken like a man, Bob!” said Jimmy warmly. “Your speech is halting, but the spirit that prompts your words—”

“Go to th-th-thunder!” grunted Coolidge.

“The Home Market Club is organized,” announced Stanley, yawning.

“It was a Home Consumption League awhile back,” objected Greenwood. “But never mind. The motto is: Patronize Home Industries! Emerson, I hope your place will do well and make you a rich man; as rich as Jimmy!”

“And m-m-more generous,” supplemented Coolidge. “A f-f-fellow who offers one box of c-c-caramels to a mob like this is a p-p-p—”

“Introducing Mr. Robert Coolidge, gentlemen, with his famous imitation of a flivver working on one cylinder. Gentlemen, Mr. Coolidge!” And Jimmy clapped loudly.

“—p-p-p-piker!” ended Coolidge triumphantly.

Whereupon the assemblage broke up, greatly aided by a tussle between Jimmy and the hockey captain. Russell left with the others, parting with Cal at the stairs and with the others outside, since both Greenwood and Coolidge lived in Haylow. “Glad to have met you, Emerson,” said the basket ball leader affably. “I’m coming into your place some day soon and see what you’ve got there. Good night.”

A somewhat unintelligible utterance from Coolidge followed and Russell went his way. Of course, reason told him, nothing might come of those fair promises, but he couldn’t help feeling elated and encouraged, and even when, reaching Number 27 Upton, he unfolded the tale of the astounding success of the evening to Stick and was met with gloomy pessimism his elation was not much subdued. Stick was like that, he reflected, and climbed into bed to lie awake a long while in the darkness and vision rosy dreams. His last conscious reflection ere he finally fell asleep was that Jimmy Austen was certainly a corking chap!