No one questioned Sam Lambert’s power as a business getter, nor the alertness of his store-keeping methods.

He was prodigal of his own energy—never spared himself. He looked after the important things and left details to others.

As with every man who is a constructive force in the world of affairs, Sam’s friends and relatives shook their heads—said that he needed a balance-wheel.

This was dinned into his ears so often that he finally came to believe it. So after many Sunday afternoon business discussions, it was arranged that he was to take into the business his wife’s cousin, one Lemuel Stucker, who had spent twenty years saving $9000 as general manager for a flour and feed concern.

Stucker had worked out elaborate sets of figures to prove the needed economies of management.

He was so tireless and sincere, so careful and exact, that it was with a great sense of relief that Sam turned the store over to him.

Here, at last, was a man who could lift from his shoulders the daily burden of management.Sam’s real interest in the change, as those who knew him might have guessed, was a desire for new enterprise. He had long had an eye on a fine opening for a clothing store in the neighboring town of Bridgeville, twenty miles away, and he lost no time in carrying out this project.

During the ensuing year he was so engrossed with the Bridgeville branch that Medeena rarely saw him, and Lemuel Stucker’s rather discouraging reports on the state of business were attributed to Lem’s conservatism and natural depression of mind.

Lem was Sam’s opposite in almost every particular. A small, sallow man with a black shoe-string necktie and a look of general regret.

He spent most of his time untying knots in pieces of string, picking up bits of wrapping paper and sharpening short lead-pencils, and he was great on buying brooms.

His effect on the store was one of immediate and prevalent blight.

You may wonder why the boys did not complain of conditions to Sam, but Lem was manager—and there is something so virtuous and convincing about a first-class retrencher. His wise saws and thrifty sayings are infectious and he makes everybody so low-spirited that they are ready to catch anything.No more good window displays—tacks, colored cheesecloth and other accessories cost money, and the sun was bad for the goods.

No more trim on the counters and shelves.

Stop the high-power electric light in front of the store and reduce the lamps inside.

These things did not all occur at once, but so gradually that it was hard to realize just what had happened to the store.

The windows got streaky and the inside of the store looked dingy and cold.

Then the conservative spirit got into the buying. Nothing but black cheviots with a few drab and gray worsteds.Perhaps it was just as well, for when a customer came into the store and saw Stucker he thought it was raining outside.

Sam Lambert had always prided himself on keeping alive what he called the “buying spirit” in the store.

Nowadays a customer got a sense of caution. The feeling was one of disapproval of all extravagance.

Instead of purchasing a suit, the man wondered where his next month’s rent was coming from, bought a pair of cottonade pants and hurried home.

Trade fell off steadily. Affairs went on this way for a twelvemonth and then something happened.Two of Sam’s principal competitors were reported to be remodeling their stores—and what was more, they were going to put in wardrobe systems and carry all their garments on hangers.

This aroused Sam and he made an immediate investigation.

He found that one of the stores had contracted for the old type of wooden wall cabinets where the clothes hung behind panelled doors.

But the other was installing glass wardrobes, where the stock would be on view.

This discovery cut Sam like a knife.

He investigated further, and was delighted to find that his wardrobe competitor, with the temptation to save a few dollars, had ordered a second-rate type of glass wardrobe, with pull-out rods that swing inside the case, without a locking device to prevent them from breaking the glass.

Without saying anything to Stucker he telegraphed the best wardrobe concern in the country to send their representative at once.