The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-11-17
& THE @ FORTUNE HUNTER
 4o A9
 Novelized by LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE From the Play of the
 Same Name by WINCHELL SMITH
 se @ Copyright. 1910. by Winchell Smith and Louis Joseph Vance
Copyright. 1910 by Winchell Smith and
 Louis Joseph Vance

so busy at the store. you know" Alone. was fain to confess he baf- fled my understanding.
 The rush of business to Graham's began the following morning. Dun cans hands were full almost from the first. and he had to relegate such mat ters as making final disposition of his stock and getting acquainted with it to the intervals between waiting upon customers. Old Sam must have put up more prescriptions in the next few days than he had within the last five years. Everybody wanted to take a look at the renovated store. shake Sam's hand and see what the new partner was really like. Sothern & Lees was for some days quite desert ed. especially after Duncan took leaf out of their book. bought an ice cream freezer and began to serve dabs of cream in the soda.
 Will Bigelow even dropped round and bought samples of the tobacco steck, from two-fors up to ten-centers, and smoked them with expressive snorts. Tracey Tanners soda and cig- arctic trade was transferred bodily to Graham's from the first, and Roland Barnette gave 1t his patronage. albeit grudgingly, as soon as he found it i'm possible to shake Josie Lockwood's al- legiance. say grudgingiy because Roland didn't like the new partner and had said so from the first But every one else did like him almost without exception. His attentiveness and courtesy were not ungrateful aft CT the way things were thrown at you | at Sothern & Lees. we declared. Duncan certainly did strive to please No man ever worked harder in a Rad vile store than he did And from the l time that he began to believe there | would be some reward for his exer- lions. that the business was suscepti ! ble to being built up by the employ ment of progressive methods. he grew astonHhingly prolific of ideas. from notnt of view. The win COW displays were changed almost daily, to begin with. and were made as interesting as possible. We learned to go blocks out of our way to find out
  ing today. And daily bargain sales were instituted. low priced articles of everyday use, such as shaving soap, l toothbrushes and the like, being sold at a few cents above cost on certain days. which were announced in ad- l vance by means of hand lettered cards l In the show windows. whereas for | merly we had always been obliged to l pay full list prices,
 | Still earlier in his career as a bust ness man he noticed that the local ! practitioners wrote their prescriptions l on odd scraps of paper.
 ! t'That's all wrong," he declared. l "We'Il have to fix it." And by next morning the job printing press back of 1 the courthouse was grooming under an | order from Graham & Duncan's. and a few days later every physician within several miles of Radville received half dozen neat pads of blanks with bis name and address printed at the top and the advice across the bottom. ''Go 1 to Graham's for the best and purest | drugs and chemicals" The backs of the blanks were utilized to request | people living out of reach. but on rural free delivery routes. either to mail l their prescriptions and other orders fin l or have the physicians telephone them, 1 promising to fill and dispatch them by the first post
 1 For he had a telephone installed within the first fortnight and the next day advertised in the Gazette that or ders by telephone would receive prompt attention and be delivered
 without delay. Tracey Tanner be- came his delivery boy. deserting his fathers stables for the obvious advan- tages of s a week with a chance to learn the business.
 Starting with line of five and ten cent packages of indigestible sweets. Duncan in time made arrangements with a big Pittsburg confectionery concern to ship him a small consign- ment of pound and half pound fancy" boxes of chocolates and bonbons twice week. And taffy pulls and fudge parties lapsed into desuetude.
 Later Sperry introduced him to an association of druggists, of which Re l became a member. for the mainte
 nance and exploitation of the cigar and tobacco trade in connection with the drug business.
 Again. be treated Radville to it's first circulating library. establishing 8
 branch in the store. One could buy 8
 book at q moderate price and either
 keep it or exchange it for fee of a few cents.
 Undoubtedly he made the business
 hum during those first few months and after that it settled down to { steady forward movement. The store
 became social center. place for peo
 pie to meet Tn time Tracey was pro
 noted to be assistant and another boy
 engaged to make deliveries.
 But this chronicle of progress ha.
 run away altogether with a desultory
 pen. which started to tell why Duncan didn't want to go to Josie Lockwood
 party. l was long in finding out. bu
 not so long as Duncan himself, per haps, by which I mean to say that ht
 was conscious of the desire not to gt
 and determined not to without stop ping to analyze the cause of that de
 sire more than very superfcially. I If hapnpued toward fhe close of fin,