Page:Adventures in Thrift (1916).djvu/100

 "You bet you could," remarked Mr. Larry, heartily if inelegantly.

"And the cleaner charged me one dollar for cleaning baby's coat. I've always done it myself with a quarter's worth of gasoline. So here I am, trying to work out some method of reducing household expenses, but neglecting my house and cooking and wondering whether in the end I'll have saved even a single penny."

"Experiments are sometimes costly, but if they develop into labor savers or expense reducers, they are well worth while. You remember Maguire, who insisted that if the firm would give him time to experiment he could make one of our machines double its capacity? The firm agreed and paid his salary for two years. Then suddenly he turned the trick, and cut down expenses in that particular line of output about one-third. That paid, didn't it?"

"Oh, Larry, you are so comforting. I do think there must be something in cooperation, in buying directly from producers in large quantities, because everybody is talking about it."

"Then stop worrying about the little leaks