In Mountain City, a town on the Union Pacific, five times larger than
Saltillo, a mercantile firm was about to go to the wall. It had a
lively and growing custom, but was on the edge of dissolution and ruin.
Mismanagement and the gambling habits of one of the partners explained
it. The condition of the firm was not yet public property. I had my
knowledge of it from a private source. I knew that, if the ready cash
were offered, the stock and good will could be bought for about one
fourth their value.
On arriving in Saltillo I went to Bell's store. He nodded to me, smiled
his broad, lingering smile, went on leisurely selling some candy to a
little girl, then came around the counter and shook hands.
"Well," he said (his invariably preliminary jocosity at every call
I made), "I suppose you are out here making kodak pictures of the
mountains. It's the wrong time of the year to buy any hardware, of
course."
I told Bell about the bargain in Mountain City. If he wanted to take
advantage of it, I would rather have missed a sale than have him
overstocked in Saltillo.
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