My father always went to Lawyer Sturgis when he needed any law, so we figured he’d be likely to know about that chattel mortgage. Mark went over to see him and found out that every word Jehoshaphat P. had said was true. Father had needed money and borrowed five hundred dollars from Hamilcar Wilkins, who didn’t do anything but lend money. Somehow Skip had found out about it and had bought the note. So there we were.

“Well,” says Mark when he got back, “th-that’s settled. Now all we got to do is dig up that five hundred.”

“Yes,” says I, sarcastic-like, “that’s all.”

“We’ll do it,” says he. “I’ve noticed,” says he, “that if you’ve got to do a thing or b-b-bust you usually do it—or bust.” He grinned all over his fat face. “Now let’s forget about the mortgage and start to makin’ money.”

“Suits me,” says I.

By this time we had our stock pretty well arranged. You wouldn’t have known the old store. Everything was in order and arranged so it could be found. The most expensive things were at the front, the five-and-ten-cent things were at the back. That was Mark’s idea.

“Folks is after bargains,” says he, “and they’ll walk to get ’em. When they come in they’ll be after somethin’ cheap. But we’ll m-make ’em walk past the other things. They can’t h-help lookin’ at ’em, and chances are they’ll see somethin’ they need.”

It was so, too. I can name three or four folks who came in to buy something for a dime, but did buy something for a half a dollar or a dollar just because they saw them on the way back. Things we calculated folks would want we had set up conspicuous, with the price marked on them plain—and it was generally a price that ended in odd cents. Mark says folks are used to paying even money, and if you make it ninety-eight cents or sixty-three cents, why, right off they think it’s a bargain.

But don’t get to thinking business was good. It wasn’t. It wasn’t any better Friday, though quite a few folks came in to ask what we were up to next. This tickled Mark because he said it meant folks were watching us and thinking about us and wondering what sort of scheme we were going to work off on them. That, says he, is good advertising.

Wicksville is full of folks with curiosity. I’ll bet I was asked questions about our signs a dozen times, but wouldn’t tell. Mark said to keep them guessing till we were ready, which was Saturday about ten o’clock. Then Mark put up in the window a big sign explaining about the beauty contest. Lots of folks stopped to look at it, and grinned and laughed, just like I thought they would. Once there was quite a little crowd looking in. Along came Chet Weevil. Uncle Ike Bond was there, and as soon as he saw Chet he commenced to yell at him.

“Ho, Chet!” says he, “here’s somethin’ ’ll int’rest you. Han’somest-man contest! You and them neckties of yourn ’ll be enterin’, eh? Got to settle whether you or Chancy Miller is the beautifulest. Seems like I can’t sleep till I git the judgment of folks on that.”

Chet was all primped up with a checked suit and yellow shoes and a necktie that looked like it would burn your finger if you touched it. He didn’t grin—not Chet. He sort of drew himself up and looked at his reflection in the window and felt of his tie to see if it was on straight.

“Hum!” says he. “I don’t lay no claim to beauty.” Then he sort of put his head on one side and looked at himself again.

“Course not,” says Uncle Ike. “You’re one of the modestest fellers in town, but, Chet—it’s a secret and don’t whisper it to a soul—folks have said to me as how they ree-garded you as a feller of strikin’ appearance. Honest, Chet.”

“Hum!” says Chet again. “I aim to keep myself lookin’ as good as I kin. It’s a feller’s duty.”

“To be sure. That’s the way Chancy looks at it. I heard him sayin’ no later than yestiddy that he took consid’able pains with himself. He says you was perty good-lookin’, too. Yes, sir. Says he, if it wasn’t for him, you’d be about the best-lookin’ feller in the county.”

“Did, eh?” says Chet, mad-like. “Did, eh? Mind, I hain’t claimin’ to be handsomer ’n anybody else, but this I do say, and this I’ll stand by: if I wasn’t better-lookin’ than Chancy Miller I’d buy me a mask or raise whiskers, that’s what I’d do. Why,” says he, “Chancy’s pants bags at the knee.”

“So they do,” says Uncle Ike. “But Chancy alluded to your hair. Says your hair was all right as hair, but, says he, as a ornament it would be better if Chet was bald-headed.”

“Hair!” says Chet. “Does that there gangle-legged, pig-eyed, strawberry-topped imitation of a punkin’ lantern go around makin’ personal remarks about me? Maybe my hair hain’t curly, but, b’ jing, it looks like hair, and not like no throwed-away bed-springs.”

Well, just then who should come in sight but Chancy Miller, his hat on the back of his head so his frizzes would show, and a posy in his buttonhole. Uncle Ike spied him.

“Just alludin’ to you, Chancy,” he says. “We was discussin’ them ringlets of yourn. Chet here declares as how they favor worn-out bed-springs consid’able.”

Chancy scowled at Chet and took off his hat like he thought it was hot. That was a way of his. He was always looking for excuses to put his hair on exhibition.

“Chet hadn’t better do no talkin’ about hair,” says he. “If he was to get his shaved off and then tie a handkerchief over his head so what was left wouldn’t show, he’d look a sight more like a human bein’.”

“Well,” says Uncle Ike, “I see there’s a sight of rivalry amongst you two on this here beauty question. But it’s goin’ to be decided, Chancy; it’s goin’ to be decided. Read this sign, Chancy, and be happy.”

Chancy he read the sign and then took off his hat again and smoothed back his hair. He looked at Chet sort of speculating and Chet looked at him. Then both of them stuck up their noses simultaneous.

“Who’s been spoke of so far?” Chancy asked.

“Nobody but you and Chet,” says Uncle Ike.

“I thought,” says Chancy, “it was goin’ to be a contest. Not,” says he, “that I got any idee I’m what you’d call handsome”—he stopped to take a squint at himself in the window—“but—but compared to Chet,” says he, “I’m one of these here Greek statues alongside of a packin’-box.”

“You be, eh?” yelled Chet. “You think you be? Well, Chancy Miller, all I got to say is this: if my mother’d ’a’ had any idee I was goin’ to look like you she wouldn’t of tried to raise me. She’d drownded me when I was a day old. Why,” says Chet, getting madder and madder, “the only resemblance between you and a good-lookin’ feller is that you got two arms and legs. It ’u’d take six college professors with microscopes a year to pick out a point to you that don’t class as homely. Handsome! Oh, my!”

At that Chancy started to move toward Chet and Chet started to move toward Chancy, but they didn’t go far. They weren’t the sort of fellows to get themselves mussed up in a fight. Nobody offered to stop them, so they stopped themselves, about six feet apart, and took it out in scowling.

“We’ll let the votes of the people decide,” says Chet, as grand as an emperor.

“Huh!” says Chancy. “You’ll have to git a stiddy job now and spend your wages in the Bazar, or you won’t git a vote.”

Just then along came Mrs. Bloom and Mrs. Peterson, and they stopped to see what was going on. First they read the sign and then they listened.

Uncle Ike grinned to himself and says:

“We men has figgered the contest is narrowed down to Chet and Chancy. ’Tain’t likely anybody will enter agin ’em, is it, Mis’ Bloom?”

Mrs. Bloom sniffed. “I thought this was goin’ to be a contest for the handsomest man,” says she. “If ’tis, neither of them whipper-snappers is eligible. Let ’em wait till they git their growth. For a handsome man gimme somebody that’s old enough to wash his own face without his mother’s helpin’ him. The best-lookin’ time in a man’s life is when he’s about forty-three.”

“Forty-seven, to be exact,” says Mrs. Peterson, her eyes snapping.

“Forty-three,” says Mrs. Bloom. “Forty-three is Peter Bloom’s age, and I ought to know. When I was young I could ’a’ had the pick of the young fellers in this town, but I took Peter, and hain’t never regretted it. I guess you folks hain’t seen Peter in his new Sunday suit, or you wouldn’t be talkin’ about these—these gangleshanks.”

Mrs. Peterson blinked and swallowed hard and opened her mouth a couple of times before she could speak.

“If you was to stand Peter Bloom alongside of Jason Peterson,” says she, in a voice that sounded like somebody tearing a piece of tin, “I guess you’d change your mind. Maybe Peter was fair-lookin’ once,” says she, “but Jason’s been eatin’ good cookin’ for twenty-two year—and that tells.”

Uncle Ike winked to himself and says, sober-like, “It looks, fellers, as if Chet and Chancy wasn’t goin’ to have the field to themselves.”

“No, they hain’t,” says Mrs. Bloom, “and I’m goin’ right in now to spend a dollar—a dollar—and vote ten votes for Peter. There.” She jerked her head and turned on her heel and marched into the store.

“Gimme that pair of scissors I was lookin’ at the other day,” says she, “and a paper of pins, and six spools of forty white thread, and if that don’t make up a dollar just say so.”

“It c-c-comes to a dollar and six cents,” says Mark.

“Then gimme somethin’ for four cents to make up the other ten,” says she. “And gimme them votes so’s I can cast ’em for Peter Bloom.”

Mrs. Peterson came in right after, and she spent a dollar and thirty cents, casting her votes for Jason Peterson.

Mark looked at me and his eyes twinkled.

“What d’you think of the s-s-scheme now?” he asked in a whisper.

“It begins to look,” says I, “like there might be somethin’ to it.”

It began to look like it still more as the day went on. Chet Weevil met me as I was coming back from dinner.

“Plunk,” says he, “kin you keep a secret?”

“Like throwin’ it down a well,” says I.

“What d’you think of Chancy’s chances?” says he.

“Well,” says I, hardly able to keep my face straight, “I hain’t much of a judge, but that curly hair of his—”

“Huh!” he growled. “Hair hain’t goin’ to count. Got any bang-up neckties? The kind folks can’t help seein’?”

“We got some,” says I, “that you could flag a train with on a dark night.”

“How much?” says he.

“Forty-nine cents apiece.”

He reached down into his pocket and pulled out two dollar bills. “This here,” says he, “is secret between you and me. I want four of them ties—and you needn’t mind the change. Vote them twenty votes for me like somebody else did it—and if Chancy goes votin’ for himself, just you lemme know, and I’ll beat him or—or bust a gallus.”

From that on I was more cheerful. Things began getting exciting and, somehow, I almost forgot about Jehoshaphat P. Skip and his chattel mortgage.