“Dad,” said Catty, after Jim Bockers had been in business a week or so, and had got about all the business there was going just by waiting till Catty and his father made a price for the job and then doing the work cheaper than they would, “I got a idea for fixin’ Bockers.”

Mr. Atkins had been showing a little more interest in his business since Bockers started. It wasn’t that he wanted to work any more, but it sort of made him mad to have another man prevent him from working, like Bockers was trying to do. He had been in town a month now, and it seemed to me like I could see some change in him already. It wasn’t just that Catty made him keep shaved and his beard trimmed, but it was sort of in the way he talked and how he looked at things. Most of the time he was just the same Mr. Atkins that wanted to tramp the roads and be shiftless, but there were times when he got interested in something, and for as much as a half an hour at a time didn’t appear to object even to working. Catty said it was encouraging.

“What’s the idee?” says Mr. Atkins.

“Our sign says builder, don’t it?”

“Calc’late it does.”

“Know anythin’ about buildin’, Dad?”

“Not a doggone thing.”

“Don’t make no difference. Somebody knows about it, and we kin make arrangements to make use of what they know.”

“Uh-huh. S’pose so.”

“Well, I hear Mr. Witherspoon is goin’ to build him a house. Thing for us to do is to git the job. Git it sudden ’fore folks know we’re after it. It ’ll keep us busy, and keep our men busy so’s nobody kin hire ’em off of us. We’ll make more money, maybe, than just by paintin’ and paperhangin’, and if we git the job, we’ll have the paintin’ and paperhangin’ to do, anyhow.”

“How ’ll that bother Bockers?” says Mr. Atkins.

“Why, we kin bid on every job that comes along, and accordin’ to his agreement he’s got to bid lower ’n what we do. We’ll figure what a job will cost, and then we’ll be able to bid quite a lot lower ’n it ’ll cost to do it. Bockers ’ll have to bid lower ’n that, so that every time he takes a job we’ll be compellin’ him to lose a heap of money. Don’t figger he’ll be able to keep it up very long.”

“Sounds reasonable,” says Mr. Atkins. “But I dunno nothin’ about buildin’.”

“Don’t tell anybody,” says Catty, with a grin. “Let’s hike and see Mr. Witherspoon.” The three of us went over to Mr. Witherspoon’s office and was shown in.

“We hear you’re figgerin’ on buildin’ a house,” says Catty.

“Yes,” says Mr. Witherspoon.

“Bein’ in the contractin’ business, father and me come over to see about takin’ the contract to build it—complete, includin’ paintin’ and paperhangin’ and all.”

“I was thinking of letting separate contracts for each part of the work.”

Mr. Atkins cleared his throat and up and spoke. I was so surprised I didn’t know what to do. He was actually helpin’ Catty to land a job!

“My experience,” says he, and he sounded like he had had lots of it, “is that it hain’t ever satisfactory to let separate contracts. Makes for delay and scamped work. Your masons has to wait on the cellar-digger, and the carpenters has to wait on the masons, and the lathers and plasterers has to wait on the carpenters, and they git to bickerin’ and quarrelin’, and fust you know somebody’s scamped the work some place.... It’s always best, Mr. Witherspoon, to have one man a-supervisin’ of the whole job and responsible for everything. Then you kin look to him.”

Mr. Witherspoon nodded. “That sounds very reasonable, Mr. Atkins.... Here are my plans and specifications. I think I shall give you a chance to bid on the job. Want to take them to figure over?”

“Yes,” says Catty.

He took the papers and we said good-by to Mr. Witherspoon, and out we went.

“How in tunket,” says Catty, “do you figger out how much it’s goin’ to cost to build a house?”

“Hain’t got no idee,” says I.

“Nor me,” says Mr. Atkins.

“The name of the feller that drew these plans is printed on ’em,” says Catty. “Seems like he ought to know.”

“Where’s he at?” says Mr. Atkins. “Canton,” says Catty. “Five miles east, hain’t it, Wee-wee?”

“Yes,” says I.

“I’ll walk over with ’em,” says Mr. Atkins, eager-like. You see, he was jest achin’ to get his feet on a sandy road and ramble.

“Fine,” says Catty, and he winked at me. “You and us fellers ’ll walk over, and maybe ketch the train back. Start in the mornin’.”

So in the morning we started over to Canton to see this man Phillips, the architect. I was wondering what kind of a man he was and how he would act, but that didn’t seem to bother Catty much. When we got there we found him in a little room up-stairs over the express-office, and he looked like he was just fresh from college. He was nice-lookin’ and I liked him right off.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” says he. “What can I do for you?”

“Be you the archytect?” says Mr. Atkins.

“I am,” says Mr. Phillips.

“When you make plans for a house kin you figger how much it’s goin’ to cost to build it?”

“I can.”

“I got some plans you drawed, and I want to git the costs, for diggin’, masonry, carpenter-work, and all—each sep’rate.... I’m a contractor, Mr. Phillips, and I calc’late to have quite some work for a handy archytect. Figger I’ll need a man with idees and brains.”

I was so surprised I almost bit myself. I’d never heard Mr. Atkins talk like that. He sounded almost like a business man.

Well, sir, we sat down and talked, and pretty soon it seemed like we was well acquainted, and we began telling each other about ourselves. Seemed that Mr. Phillips was new at his job and just out of college and hadn’t any money, and didn’t get much to do. He was interested a lot in Catty and Mr. Atkins.

“Pity you settled in Canton,” says Mr. Atkins. “Our town’s bigger and liver and got more business. I look to see it grow.”

“Mr. Phillips,” says Catty, all of a sudden, “why don’t you move over there? Nothin’ to hold you here. If you’ll come we kin work together. We got a room you kin use, rent free, as an office, or we can make a kind of partnership out of it. I figgered on makin’ an ice-cream parlor out of that room, but I guess there’s more money in architects. Then you’d be handy to us, and we’d be handy to you.... I tell you, Mr. Phillips, we kin git the work to do if we kin find somebody to tell us how to do it.”

“I’m hanged,” says Mr. Phillips, “if I don’t believe you can.”

And that’s how it came about that Jack Phillips moved to our town and went into business with the Atkinses. It seemed like he was some folks, too. Had family and all that, but his father had lost his money. Our town was kind of excited about him comin’, and it was an awful shock to ’em when they seen our sign go up. I say our sign because I was so interested in the business. The new sign was plain and Catty said it was dignified. It said:

The first day after Jack joined in with Catty and his father I heard Mr. Gage stop him on the street.

“Mr. Phillips, hain’t it?” says Mr. Gage.

“I’m sure you’re right,” says Jack, with the kind of a grin he usually wears.

“Took up with them Atkinses, have you?” says Mr. Gage.

“The Atkinses have taken me into partnership, if that’s what you mean,” says Jack, still smiling.

“They’ll do you,” says Mr. Gage. “Nothin’ but tramps off’n the road. Maybe wuss, for all I know. Folks don’t want ’em in town, and if you git mixed up with ’em, folks won’t want you.”

“Has Mr. Atkins or his son done anything dishonest to anybody in this town?”

“Not as I know of.”

“Have they acted in any way other than as decent folks?”

“Wa-al, course they been puttin’ on a good face. Waitin’ their chance,” says Mr. Gage.

Jack wasn’t smiling any more. “Your name’s Gage, isn’t it? Well, let me tell you something. Mr. Atkins and Catty have given me a chance when nobody else had any use for me. Maybe I’m going to be a help to them. I hope so. I knew all about them before I came. I’m going to stay. I’m Mr. Atkins’s partner and I’m going to remain Mr. Atkins’s partner.... Maybe he’s a bit shiftless. But he’s a man of his word, Mr. Gage, and that’s a lot. He may have been a tramp, but he doesn’t sneak around trying to injure people who never did him any harm. Mr. Atkins is as good as I am, Mr. Gage, and I have a notion that both of us are a sight better than a heap of you backbiters in this town. Am I clear? We’re in business here, and we’ll stay in business here. Good afternoon.”

With that Jack just turned around and walked off, leaving Mr. Gage googling after him like he had bumped his head and was seeing stars.

“Bully for you, Jack!” says I.

“D’you know what Catty said to me this morning?” Jack asked me, and he was grinning again like he was tickled to death.

“No,” says I.

“He asked if I’d ever taken lessons in manners.”

“Huh!” says I.

“He said I acted like I had manners, and he wanted to know where I got ’em. I told him I guess they grew on me like my nose, and he wanted to know if I wouldn’t sort of take charge of his father and him in the manners line. I’m going to live with them, of course. He says he’s gone as far as he’s able teaching his father table manners, and he wants I should go on from where he left off—teaching both of them.”

“Better do it,” says I, “if Catty wants you to.”

“Guess I will,” says Jack.

“Get that house contract?” says I.

“Landed it this morning. Our price was fifty-four hundred dollars.”

“Much profit into it?”

“We ought to make six or seven hundred.”

“Bully!” says I. “And Catty done it, didn’t he? He was the one that thought it up.”

“Catty’s the best man of the three of us,” says Jack.

Just then Mr. Arthur Peabody Kinderhook drove past in a buggy, all dressed up like he was going to a party. He always looked like he was going to a party, that man did. And he didn’t do any work that I could notice. Just lived in the hotel and drove around and made believe he was looking at the town. It kind of leaked out that he was planning on building a big factory and was choosing the best place to put it. He didn’t say much. Nobody knew what he was going to manufacture, and when they asked him he edged away kind of skittish. It got folks all het up over it. Our town was growing as curious as if he was a circus they couldn’t get into and there was a lot of death-defying trapeze performers doing tricks inside all the time.

“Arthur Peabody Kinderhook,” says I, and I told Jack all about him.

We walked back to the store. Catty was reading a letter, and when we came in he looked up with a kind of scowl.

“Letter from the lumber company. They won’t trust us. Say they’ll ship that lumber for Witherspoon’s house, C. O. D., whatever that means.”

“It means we’ll have to pay for it before we can get it,” said Jack.

“But we’ve got to use it before we can get the money to pay for it,” says Catty.

We was all pretty gloomy. It looked right there as if the partnership of Atkins & Phillips was busted, and I guess Phillips thought so for sure. But Catty turned to his Dad.

“Hain’t the banks run so’s they kin lend money to folks?” he says.

“Not that I know about personal,” says Mr. Atkins. “None of ’em ever offered to lend to me.”

“This here is an honest business,” says Catty, “and we kin pay for that lumber as soon as we git it built into the house. Seems like we deserve to have folks trust us on a deal like this. Maybe it’s because the lumber company don’t know about it. Captain Winton, at the bank, will know all about it. I’m going to see him.”

“No use,” says Jack.

“All right. I’m goin’ just the same. Come on, Wee-wee.”

I started out with him, leaving Jack and Mr. Atkins behind. Jack was gloomy, but Mr. Atkins was kind of cheerful, because it was one of his days when he wanted to wander, and I guess he figured if this contract didn’t go through, why, he could go back to being shiftless again. Catty and me we walked up the street and turned into the bank. He rapped on Captain Winton’s door and the captain called to come in. We went.

“Well?” says the captain, looking at us kind of impatient.

“We come to borrow some money, if you want to lend it to us.”

“How much?” says the captain, and he put his hand in his pocket like he was going after a dime.

“Right off we need eleven hundred dollars,” says Catty.

“What?” says Captain Winton, like he couldn’t believe his ears.

“Eleven hundred dollars,” says Catty, and then before the captain could get up and throw us out he went on and told why he wanted it, and what he was going to do with it, and how he could pay it back.

“Why didn’t your father come?” the captain said.

“He didn’t think you’ld lend it.”

“Um!... Contract with Witherspoon, eh? Got it signed and all?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”

“I fetched it for you to see.”

“Um!...” The captain looked it over. “Willing to put up this contract as security?” he says.

“’Course,” says Catty.

“I’m going to lend it to you, and I’ll tell you why,” says the captain. “In the first place, it is good business for me and the bank. A bank makes its money by lending to folks at interest. The more it lends where it knows it will be paid back the more it makes. Then, a bank has to help a community to grow and develop. Nothing like a good bank to make a town. We furnish the capital, and men build houses with it, and start stores and factories. Then they come and deposit the money they make in the bank. Then the bank has more to lend to somebody else, and it makes more money. Kind of an endless chain. Really, our business is helping other folks to build up their businesses. See?”

“Yes,” says Catty.

“I’ve had my eye on you and your father. I know about this young Phillips that’s gone in with you. It was a good move. I know what the women of this town are trying to do to you, and how you’ve acted. I think you are honest. You are going at things right. Somehow, tramps or no tramps, I’ve got confidence in you folks. Is it true,” he says, “that you are teaching your father manners so he’ll be equipped to meet folks when he’s a successful business man?”

“Yes,” says Catty.

“Learning them yourself, too?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good!” says the captain. “It’s the kind of thing banks take into consideration. Didn’t know that, did you?... Um!... It shows you mean to succeed. The will to succeed is a fine asset, my boy, and I’m proving it to you. Because it is one of the reasons I’m loaning you this money. Get your father and Phillips to come and sign a note and the money will be here for them.... Good luck to you.”

“Thank you, sir,” says Catty.

“Thank you,” says the captain, just like he was talking to another business man.

We hustled back, you can bet.

“Git over to the bank quick and sign a note ’fore he changes his mind,” says Catty, calm as a puddle of rain-water. “The money’s there waitin’ fur you.”

“You’re joking,” says Jack.

“You’ll find the money hain’t no joke,” says Catty. “You and Dad—git!”

Mr. Atkins shook his head sadlike. “’Tain’t no use,” says he. “I’m fated to be a business man. There hain’t no hope, nohow.”

“Not a mite,” says Catty. “And, Jack, think up all the manners you kin to teach us. Captain Winton says they’re an asset, whatever an asset is. Anyhow, it’s somethin’ that helps you borrow money.”

“Catty,” says Jack, “I’ll cram the pair of you so full of manners that you’ll look like a busy day in a crowded dancing-school.”

“Guess we kin manage to use all you got to spare,” says Catty, as sober as a judge.