The Time Shop Continued…

“These boys are buying an education with their time,” said Mr. Promptness, as they looked in at the door. “For the most part they haven’t any fathers and mothers to help them, so they come here and spend what they have on the things that we have in our library. It is an interesting fact that what is bought in this room can never be stolen from you, and it happens more often than not that when they have spent hundreds of hours in here they win more time to spend on the other things that we have on sale. But there are others, I am sorry to say, who stop on their way here in the morning and fritter their loose change away in the Shop of Idleness across the way—a minute here, and a hall hour there, sometimes perhaps a whole hour will be squandered over there, and when they arrive here they haven’t got enough left to buy anything.”

“What can you buy at the Shop of Idleness?” asked Bobby, going to the street door, and looking across the way at the shop in question, which seemed, indeed, to be doing a considerable business, if one could judge from the crowds within.

“Oh, a little fun,” said Mr. Promptness. “But not the real, genuine kind, my boy. It is a sort of imitation fun that looks like the real thing, but it rings hollow when you test it, and on close inspection turns out to be nothing but frivolity.”

“And what is that great gilded affair further up the street?” asked Bobby, pointing to a place with an arched entrance gilded all over and shining in the sunlight like a huge house of brass.

“That is a cake shop,” said Mr. Promptness, “and it is run by an old witch named Folly. When you first look at her you think she is young and beautiful, but when you come to know her better you realize that she is old, and wrinkled, and selfish. She gives you things and tells you that you needn’t pay until tomorrow and this goes on until some day tomorrow comes, and you find she has not only used up all the good time you had, but that you owe her even more, and when you can’t pay she pursues you with all sorts of trouble.

That’s all anybody ever got at Folly’s shop, Bobby —just trouble, trouble, trouble.”

“There seem to be a good many people there now,” said Bobby, looking up the highway at Folly’s gorgeous place.

“Oh, yes,” sighed Mr. Promptness. “A great many—poor things! They don’t know any better, and what is worse they won’t listen to those who do.”

“Who is that pleasant looking gentleman outside the Shop of Idleness?” asked Bobby, as a man appeared there and began distributing his card amongst the throng.

“He is the general manager of the Shop of Idleness,” said the salesman. “As you say, he is a pleasant looking fellow, but you must beware of him, Bobby. He is not a good person to have around. He is a very active business man, and actually follows people to their homes, and forces his way in, and describes his stock to them as being the best in the world. And all the time he is doing so he is peering around in their closets, in their chests, everywhere, with the intention of robbing them. The fact that he is so pleasant to look at makes him very popular, and I only tell you the truth when I say to you that he is the only rival
we have in business that we are really afraid of. We can compete with Folly but—”

Mr. Promptness’s words were interrupted by his rival across the way, who, observing Bobby standing in the doorway, cleverly tossed one of his cards across the street so that it fell at the little boy’s feet. Bobby stooped down and picked it up and read it. It went this way:

“So he’s Procrastination, is he?” said Bobby, looking at the man with much interest, for he had heard his father speak of him many a time, only his father called him “old Put Off.”

“Yes, and he is truly what they say he is,” said Mr. Promptness; “the thief of time.”

“He doesn’t look like a thief,” said Bobby.

Now it is a peculiarity of Procrastination that he has a very sharp pair of ears, and he can hear a great many things that you wouldn’t think could travel so far, and, as Bobby spoke, he turned suddenly and looked at him, waved his hand, and came running across the street, calling out to Bobby to wait.

Mr. Promptness seized Bobby by the arm, and pulled him into the Time Shop, but not quickly enough, for he was unable to close the door before his rival was at their side.

“Glad to see you, my boy,” said Procrastination, handing him another card. “Come on over to my place. It’s much easier to find what you want there than it is here, and we’ve got a lot of comfortable chairs to sit down and think things over in. You needn’t buy anything today, but just look over the stock.”

 

Go to Part 5  here.