al to start
a small store in New York, far downtown, where rents were cheap.

Like his peddler's pack, the store was stocked with odds and ends.
But again they were just the right odds and ends, the odds and ends
that every one in that neighbourhood wanted and had never been able to
obtain under one roof. No article cost less than five cents, none more
than a dollar, and it was marvellous what Peter Rolls could afford to
sell for a dollar.

"I Can Furnish Your Flat for Ten Dollars. Why? Because I Work with My
Own Hands," was Peter Rolls's first advertisement. And the Hands had
never lost their cunning since.

He could undersell any other shopkeeper in New York because he got his
salesmen for next to nothing. They were a judicious selection from
among his friends, the tramps. Any man who could recall enough of his
schooling to do a little sum in addition was eligible. He was fed,
clothed, tobaccoed, judiciously beered, watched all day while at work,
and shut up at night in a fireproof, drink-proof cubicle. The plan
proved a brilliant success. The little store downtown became a big
one, and grew bigger and bigger, swallowing all the other stores in
its block; and it was now ten years since the great Sixth Avenue
department store, which could call itself the largest in New York, was
opened under the benediction of the Hands.

Winifred had fancied, because of the balm which was making a fortune,
that Peter Rolls, Sr., was some sort of a glorified chemist. But Mr.
Loewenfeld roared at this idea. The Balm of Gilead was only one of the
lucky hits in the drug department, in itself as big as a good-sized
provincial store. The Hands sold everything, and though the tramps
were long ago dead or abolished, Peter Rolls still undersold every
other store in New York. How did he do it? Well--there were ways.
The hands without a capital H might tell, perhaps; but they did not
talk much. Peter Rolls never had any difficulty in obtaining or
keeping as many of them as he wanted, and could get double the number
if he liked.

"Does he still 'work with his own hands?'" quoted Win at last, feeling
half guilty, as if she ought not to ask questions about Peter's father
behind Peter's back. But the affairs of the Rolls family seemed to be
public property. Mr. Loewenfeld and Miss Seeker both laughed.

"I should love," said the latter, "to see Ena Rolls's face if her
father _did_ work! She spells their name with an 'e'--R-o-l-l-e-s--and
hope