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Rh time there was plate-glass all around him. On the following morning, to his dismay, there appeared in the opposition windows an exact duplication of his own display, and in the night had been put up sign-boards all along the opposite side of the street, as well as that portion of his own side which he did not occupy, bearing the words, repeated and repeated, "Bendale's Stores," "Bendale's Stores," "Bendale's Stores." But the appalling feature of the crisis was that all goods were marked down, as if this were the end of the season instead of the beginning.

"The fools! The idiots!" he cried. "Do they think to hurt me by cutting their own throats?" So he girded himself for the fight. He thought that the fashionable woman would not be tempted by this unseasonable lowering of prices, and in this he was partly correct. But there is one temptation that the most fashionable woman cannot withstand, and that is unlimited credit. Brassard had done a cash business heretofore with his customers who paid high prices, and, of course, it was money over the counter at the sales; but this madman Bendale was offering credit to all who asked, and was supplying goods of the same quality as Brassard at half the price.

It was not only in "rags" that values had been sacrificed; grocery, hardware, boots and shoes, everything Brassard sold could be purchased fifty per cent. cheaper merely by crossing the street.