it pictured in the catalogue, but pictures often look more beautiful than the real thing. This bicycle looked just as fine as the picture, which was saying something. Any boy, including Ted himself if he had been younger, would have been proud and delighted with it.
He began to open the other packages. There was a beautiful doll, elaborately dressed, which would certainly have warmed the heart of any small girl. And there was a portable radio—just the thing for picnics—and a number of household utensils. Whatever reservations Ted had about the stamp plan, he had to admit there was nothing shoddy about these premiums. It was all first-class stuff.
All the wrappings lying on the floor made a pile too large to be fitted in the wastebasket, and Ted carried the trash out the back door and deposited it in a can. Then he was ready to organize his display. The smaller items could be placed in the window, and he arranged them as tastefully as he could. The bicycle, of course, was too large for that, but Ted stood it just behind the window display, where he knew it would be clearly visible from the street. And the posters—Ted found a roll of sticky tape and hung one of them in the window. The other he decided to hang on the office wall, where it would be readily seen by persons coming into the office.
Finally Ted had to sweep out the office for the third time, thinking meanwhile he might end up by joining the janitors’ union. Before he had returned the broom to the closet again, the telephone rang. The caller did not offer to give his name, and refused to make an appointment, although Ted suggested it as strongly as he felt he could. Instead, the man left a number where Mr. Woodring could reach him, and hung up.
Then a few of Ted’s friends happened by, saw him there, and dropped in to see what the score was. They didn’t stay very long, however, and Ted didn’t encourage them to hang around. They inquired a little about the stamp plan, looked over the premiums, then suddenly remembered it was almost time for lunch.
“Don’t make any dates for a week from Saturday night, Ted,” Cliff Corby called over his shoulder as they left.
“Why not? What’s coming off?”
“Don’t know yet. Remember when we took the girls roller skating a couple of weeks ago they said they were planning something in return? They won’t tell us what it is.”
Ted was mildly curious, and glad that there would be another get-together soon. He suddenly realized the summer was going fast, and there wasn’t much time before the fall college season set in. He wondered if he could get Nancy included in the affair. He felt he ought to do something to help her get acquainted in Forestdale, but he didn’t know just how he could work it, as long as the girls were planning the party.
And then the noon whistles began to blow, and Ted wondered what he ought to do for lunch. He hadn’t planned on going home. But while he could easily drop in to a nearby restaurant, he suddenly remembered he didn’t have a key to the front door, and he hated to leave the place open and deserted. The back door could be bolted, he discovered, and he decided to eat at a drugstore across the street, where he could keep an eye on the front door.
Better go now, Ted thought, for very likely Mr. Woodring would call in after lunch, and he’d want to be sure and be back. He went out across the street and into the drugstore. He ate slowly, and found it rather pleasant to watch across the street, where a number of passers-by stopped to gaze curiously into the window. At least Mr. Woodring was getting a little bit of publicity for his stamp plan.
After finishing his lunch, Ted would have liked to take a little walk, but he still didn’t care to get out of sight of that open door, so he merely took a short stroll up the street.
Shortly after one Mr. Woodring did call, long distance, from a nearby town.
“Any messages, Ted?” he asked.
“Just one call. Somebody left a number and wants you to call back.”
Ted gave the number, and Mr. Woodring apparently wrote it down. “Is that all?” he asked, and his voice sounded disappointed.
“Yes, I guess so,” Ted replied, and tried to sound a little more cheerful. “Maybe people don’t know we’ve got a telephone yet.”
“Well, maybe.”
“The premiums arrived, and I’ve made up a window display.”
“Good. How do you like them?”
“Fine. They’re good-quality stuff.”
Mr. Woodring’s voice suddenly became brisk. “I’ll be back before four o’clock then, Ted, unless this appointment delays me. If I should be late, you can just pack up and go home anyway.”
“You didn’t leave me a key,” Ted reminded him.
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot about it. Well, anyway, I’ll be there before closing time. There’s no use putting in any overtime with the little business we’ve got.” His voice sounded rather bitter once more, as though his morning calls hadn’t gone over too well. “Good-by, Ted.”
“Good-by, Mr. Woodring,” and they hung up.
Once more the office was still, the passing traffic hardly disturbing the calm. It looked like a long, dull afternoon ahead. Ted recalled that he had started to glance through the catalogue and been interrupted several times. Well, this time he’d really get at it. Yes, the premiums were attractive, and the bicycle especially got him. He began to wonder how long it would take the average family to earn a premium like that. Maybe it would be so long that the boy in the family would be grown up before he could earn it! He looked to see what the catalogue had to say about it. Thirty books! Then he saw there was an alternative in smaller type. The bicycle could also be obtained for five books plus seventy-five dollars. Wow! It was a wonderful bicycle, of course, but the first way would take an impossibly long time, and the other would take a fairly substantial cash outlay.
How much was each book worth, then? Well, that was very easily figured out. You could work it as an algebra problem:
30x = 5x + 75
25x = 75
x = 3
Or to put it another way:
30 books = 5 books plus $75
subtract 5 books = 5 books
25 books = $75
1 book =$3
Three dollars a book—that sounded about right. Ted remembered that Mr. Woodring had spoken of the plan as representing a 3 per cent saving. Just to make sure he worked it out for a mechanical toaster, and it came out the same. On some of the smaller premiums it wasn’t possible to make such a calculation, because the premiums could be obtained only for stamps. The doll, for example, was listed as five books. That seemed all right to Ted. It looked like a fifteen-dollar doll, as far as he could tell.
That meant that a family would have to spend a hundred dollars in order to fill a book and earn three dollars toward a premium. The bicycle, then, costing thirty books, would mean that a family would have to spend three thousand dollars! That was a good deal to spend in local stores. At that rate, it might take the average family several years to spend enough to earn a bicycle. Well, maybe that was just what the stamp plan was for, to encourage people to keep coming back to the same store over a long period of time.
The bicycle, costing thirty books at three dollars a book, was worth ninety dollars. That was rather high, but Ted decided it might be worth it. It certainly had everything, and it was hard to judge about bike prices. There were so many different models, and the price of foreign models was considerably influenced by the duty on them.
Let’s see. If each book came to three dollars, and represented a hundred dollars in purchases, with a Blue Harvest stamp given for each dime, that meant a book ought to contain a thousand stamps. Just for the fun of it, with time hanging heavy on his hands, Ted decided to count up and see. And count he did. It couldn’t be easily calculated, because some of the pages were partly filled with advertising and dummy stamps. These were printed “free” stamps, which the customer didn’t have to cover.
Ted