Holworthy Hall

“ I mean, what's the guarantee that it's the right dope?"
"Look here, boy," reproached McHenry, "if people would be willing to fork out five dollars an hour to Roger Ward to sit down at the same desk with him and get tutored by word of mouth, they ought to see that there isn't such a whale of a lot of difference between that and listening to Roger Ward through a phonograph! And Roger's price for straight man-to-man tutoring is five an hour. It's high, but he's worth it. ”

“ Now, a year and a half in Cambridge had unquestionably made Roger careless in at least one respect His cash accounts balanced to a penny; his daily reports left not one swing of the pendulum unrecorded; his habits, in spite of what his father thought, were remarkably regular if you remember that he was a perfectly normal young man—but he never opened his father's letters when they first arrived, because they generally came on the morning mail, and there was no sense in spoiling a whole day. ”

“ And if you took hold of it, you could do all sorts of stunts! You could give every course in college, because you've got assistants in your shop who naturally know a pile more than Roger—than we do! It's a mint!"
"Eighteen hundred for the whole thing is the limit," insisted Mr. French, and McHenry, gazing at him thoughtfully, saw that he showed no signs of intention to depart. McHenry winked at Roger and yawned ostentatiously.
"Mr. French," he said, "we're not business men, you know. We're just in college. I'm helping Roger work out a plan to make a little wad. ”

“ That's a pippin! But—but where does Roger get off if a couple of dozen fellows all use the same machine and the same records? Why couldn't you simply turn one loose in a room and let a whole crowd come in?"
McHenry shrugged his shoulders.
"Of course," he alleged, "that's up to the honesty of the fellows. The price is two-fifty a person, and if, say, six men listened to the stuff at the same time, each one of them ought to cough up to Roger, so he'd take eighteen dollars out of the crowd."
"It seems to me that some fellows might take advantage of him," said Murchison slowly. ”

“ It was common information that Roger's father was a wealthy man, but those of Roger's friends who had seen his cash account were inclined to be cynical about it. They alleged that no father who had such overwhelming respect for a nickel could possibly be on familiar terms with real money. The whole story, however, didn't come out until after the collapse of Monk Spinden's Prohibition Club, which was organized for the sole purpose of humiliating Pepper McHenry, and reducing him to subjection for the remainder of his college course. ”

“ McHenry allowed the reproducing needle to touch the waxen surface, and immediately the voice of Roger Ward intoned a cardinal principle of political economy.
"Now we're going to talk about wages," said Ward's calm voice. "Adam Smith said that wages ought to be just enough to let the workman live. John Stuart Mill thought that as long as labor produces the goods, laborers ought to be paid enough so they don't need to work at all. ”

“ At least, when I told him you thought up the phonograph stunt, and the combination of print shops, he said he thought you'd probably be that sort of young man—"
"Funny how news travels," said Pepper modestly.
"Well, the funniest thing is that he crawled completely on that Prohibition Club affair. I can't get it at all! Said he might have been mistaken—maybe it was a joke, after all. Then he sprung this one: He said it was a lot worse for a son of his to be working his way through college than it would have been if I'd intended to knock his business through the Prohibition Club. ”

“ If a crowd wants to get together on a course, and they'll each pay a dollar extra, Roger'll come around, too, and then if anybody wants to ask any questions, he'll stop the machine and explain until the cows come home. Even then the fellows would be getting the Widow's service at a dollar and a half under his price. ”

“ McHenry pointed to the small box full of wax records which reposed on his window seat.
"There you are," he said. "Here's Ec 1—complete brief, résumé, seminar, synopsis—call it anything you want to—of the whole blamed course. I paid Roger two and a half for a set of this stuff for a week. I soak in so much Ec that I couldn't flunk that exam if I tried. And if I get drowsy, I simply stop the record, go out and take a walk, come back, and turn her on again. It's a cinch. Same ground the Widow would cover at half the price—and you can keep it a week."
"Murder and sudden death!" ”

“ The total running expenses of that one room in the post-office block don't amount to more than fifty dollars a month! We've sold outright nearly thirty machines—and two of 'em were big fellows that netted a hundred per cent.! We haven't carried a stock of records of regular music and stuff, but we've ordered 'em in from the Boston distributing station as fellows wanted 'em. They've paid a net profit from the first day! And Roger made all the seminar records, and there's pretty close to two hundred of 'em in use now—at two and a half apiece! ”

“ FATHER ALSO RAN IT was generally understood in Cambridge that Roger Ward suffered from an extraordinarily aggravated case of Dad. It was specifically known that he had to make daily reports showing how much he worked and how little he played; that his allowance was figured out on a cost-accounting basis, with a five-per-cent surplus for dissipation in the form of one theater a month, and commutation tickets for the best libraries ”

“ A very fierce-looking old gentleman in a silk hat and costume to match paused irresolutely before the door of a certain room in Matthews, and finally, after examining with great care the visiting card tacked upon it with a tenpenny nail, whacked vigorously on the doorknob with his malacca cane. ”

“ Roger Ward got it up. Rather clever, I call it. You see, it's like this. Lots of fellows get along fairly well through the year, but when it gets around exam time, they all trail over to the Widow's and pay big prices for a seminar. ”