e asked.

"Forty-eight cents a pair by the gross. Special inside figure because I
told him we would want a quarter of a million pairs."

Van Dorn looked at them a little closer.

"The fellow I saw must have stolen his," he said, "for he was selling
them yesterday on Broadway for twenty-five cents a pair."

"Impossible, Van! They couldn't be the same, you know," protested
Barrifield, earnestly. "There are many qualities of ear-muffs. These are
the very best-double-elastic, wire-set and-bound, storm-proof muffs.
They cost forty-six cents to make--the manufacturer told me so. What you
saw was a cheap imitation."

Barrifield put an end to further discussion on this point by calling
attention to the bicycle lamp--something new and superior to any in use.
He had been attracted by it in a sporting-goods window on Nassau Street.
The price had been steep,--too steep for a premium, of course,--but he
had made up his mind that if he could get on the "inside" he would find
a price there within their reach. He had got on the inside. He had
pursued the elusive "inside" even to Hoboken, and captured it there in
the very sanctity of the factory--the president's private office.

"The president was a fine, big, smooth-faced man with one of these rich,
hearty laughs," he explained, "and we had a long talk together. I told
him we had a new scheme that would put us in a position to use a quarter
of a million of these lamps the first year, and that we had been
considering another make--which was true."

"It was," said Van Dorn, "and it would have been equally true to have
said that we've been considering every known article of commerce, from a
mouse-trap with two holes to a four-masted schooner."

"That caught him right away," continued Barrifield, regardless of this
interruption. "He said he wanted to get started with a new thing like
ours, and that he was going to let us on the inside. He had a talk with
the manager, and came back and made me a net cash price of eighty-seven
cents! Think of it! Eighty-seven cents for a two-dollar lamp! Given with
the 'Whole Family' one year--fifty-two weeks--for one dollar and one new
subscriber!"

Perner the businesslike was calculating.

"That would be two dollars we would get in all," he said, "for two
subscriptions, two premiums, postage, and handling. Counting, say,
seventy-five cents for the other premium, and twenty-five cents for
postage and handling, we would have just thirteen cents le