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 bank there. Then he won't know where it is. You had better do the same."

Bert shook his head. "I'm not going to play any shady tricks."

"Shady!" Sam cried indignantly. "That's not shady; that's a business precaution. Clud's the one who's done the shady trick. Didn't he squeeze us for $25 and then cover it up by making us sign a note for more than we got?"

"But I agreed to it," said Bert, "and signed it."

"You're a fool," Sam said impatiently, and gave him up as hopeless.

That night Bert began to have misgivings of the partnership, but it was something other than failure he was thinking of.

Thanksgiving came and went, and made no appreciable change in the fortunes of The Shoppers' Service. Directly after the holiday winter came on with a rush of intense cold and deep snow. For three days Springham shivered in the teeth of icy blasts and dug itself out. Then the tide of trade began once more to move through frozen Washington Avenue; and Bert, figuring the slimmest week's receipts the partnership had ever known, could again write down a loss instead of a gain.

Because his hopes for December had been so high, the result was doubly disappointing. Hour after hour the Christmas shoppers flowed past his door, buying, buying, buying, but not from him. The ice cream sale fell to nothing. There was a