"We are behind."
     "H'm. And what would you advise by way louis vuitton outlet of retrenchment?"
     "I should advise closing out the business by killing the fowl," was Merker's opinion. "Crediting the account with the value of the chickens as food would bring us out with a loss of approximately ten dollars."
     "Fried chicken is hardly applicable as lumber camp provender," pointed out Welton. "So it's scarcely a legitimate asset."
     "I had considered that point," replied Merker, "and in my calculations I had valued the chickens at the price of beef."
     Welton gave it up.
     Another enterprise for which Merker was responsible was the utilization of the slabs and edgings in the construction of fruit trays louis vuitton outlet and boxes. When he approached Welton on the subject, the lumberman was little inclined to be receptive to the idea.
     "That's all very well, Merker," said he, impatiently; "I don't doubt it's just as you say, and there's a lot of good tray and box material going to waste. So, too, I don't doubt there's lots of material for toothpicks and matches and wooden soldiers and shingles and all sorts of things in our slashings. The only trouble is that I'm trying to run a big lumber company. I haven't time for all that sort of little monkey chanel bags sale business. There's too much detail involved in it."
     "Yes, sir," said Merker, and withdrew.
     About two weeks later, however, he reappeared, towing after him an elderly, bearded farmer and a bashful-looking, hulking youth.
     "This is Mr. Lee," said Merker, "and he wants to make arrangements with you to set up a little cleat and box-stuff mill, and use from your dump."
     Mr. Lee, it turned out, had been sent up by an informal association of the fruit growers of the valley. Said informal association had been formed by Merker through the mails. The store-keeper had submitted such convincing figures that Lee chanel bags had been dispatched to see about it. It looked cheaper in the long run to send up a spare harvesting engine, to buy a saw, and to cut up box and tray stuff than to purchase these necessities from the regular dealers. Would Mr. Welton negotiate? Mr. Welton did. Before long the millmen were regaled by the sight of a snorting little upright engine connected by a flapping, sagging belt to a small circular saw. Two men and two boys worked like beavers. The racket and confusion, shouts, profanity and general awkwardness were something tremendous. Nevertheless, the chanel bags pile of stock grew, and every once in a while six-horse farm wagons from the valley would climb the mountain to take away box material enough to pack the fruit of a whole district. To Merker this was evidently a profound satisfaction. Often he would vary his usual between-customer reverie by walking out on his shaded verandah, where he would lean against an upright, nursing the bowl of his pipe, gazing across the sawdust to the diminutive and rackety box-plant in the distance.