Part 30 (1/2)

”Oh, yes,” says he.

”Then--then your name is Wiggins?” she goes on.

”Yes,” says he. ”Don't you remember,--Woodie Wiggins?”

”I'd forgotten,” says Aunty. ”And all the other stores like this--how many of them have you?”

”Something less than a hundred,” says he. ”Ninety-six or seven, I think.”

Most got Aunty's breath, that did; but in a jiffy she's recovered.

”Perhaps,” says she, ”you don't mind telling me the reason for this masquerade?”

”It's not quite that,” says Wiggins. ”I try to keep in touch with all my places. In making my rounds to-day I found my local manager here too ill to be at work. Bad case of grip. So I sent him home, telephoned for a subst.i.tute, and while waiting took off my coat and filled in. Fortunate coincidence, wasn't it?--for it gave me the pleasure of serving you.”

”You mean,” cuts in Aunty, ”that it gave you the opportunity of making me appear absurd. Those gowns I promised to send!”

Wiggins grins good natured. ”Is this the niece you mentioned?” says he.

Aunty admits that it is, and introduces Vee.

Then Wiggins looks inquirin' at me. ”Your son?” he asks.

And you should have seen Aunty's face pink up at that. ”Certainly not!”

says she.

”Oh!” says Woodie, screwin' up one corner of his mouth and tippin' me the wink.

I knew if I got a look at Vee I'd have to haw-haw; so I backs around with one hand behind me and we swaps a finger squeeze.

Then Aunty jumps in with the quick s.h.i.+ft. She asks him patronizin' if he finds the grocery business int'restin'. He admits that he does.

”How odd!” says Aunty. ”But I presume that you hope to retire very soon?”

”Eh?” says he. ”Quit the one thing I can do best? Why?”

”But surely,” she goes on, ”you can hardly find such a business congenial. It is so--so--well, so petty and sordid?”

”Is it, though?” says Wiggins. ”With more than five thousand employees on my payroll and a daily expense bill running well over thirty thousand, I find it far from petty. Anyway, it keeps me hustling. I used to think I was a hard worker too, when I had my one little general store at Smiths Corners.”

”And now you've nearly a hundred stores!” says Aunty. ”How did you do it?”

”I was kicked into doing it, I guess,” says Wiggins, smilin' grim. ”The manufacturers and jobbers, you know. They weren't willing to allow me a fair profit. So I had to go under or spread out. Well, I've spread,--flour mills in Minnesota, canning factories from Portland, Oregon, to Bridgeton, Maine, potato farms in Michigan and the Aroostook, cracker and bread bakeries, creameries, raisin and prune plantations,--all that sort of thing,--until gradually I've weeded out most of the greedy middlemen who stood between me and my customers.

They're poor folks, most of 'em, and when they trade with me their slim wages go further than in most stores. My ambition is to give them honest goods at a five per cent. profit.

”If they all knew what was best for them, the Wiggins stores would soon become a national inst.i.tution, and I could hand it over to the federal government; but they don't. If they did, I suppose they wouldn't be working for wages. So my chain grows slowly, at the rate of two or three stores a year. But every Wiggins store is a center for economic and scientific distribution of pure food products. That's my job, and I find it neither petty nor sordid. I can even get a certain satisfaction and pride from it. Incidentally there is my five per cent. profit to be made, which makes the game fascinating. Retire? Not until I've found something better to do, and up to date I haven't.”

Havin' got this off his mind and the parcels done up, Mr. Wiggins walks back to answer the 'phone.

When he comes out again, in a minute or so, he's shucked the jumper and is b.u.t.tonin' himself into a mink-lined overcoat.