He had once, in the school days when he was blossoming into a man of fashion, experienced a similar sensation before a cravat of pigeon-blood red. He peered through the window to see if anyone he knew was present, and glanced up the street to assure himself that a mob was not going to collect. Then he entered nonchalantly. The clerk, who recognized him, greeted him with ingratiating unction.
“Glad to see you here, Mr. Stover. What can I do for you?”
“I thought I’d look at some shirts,” he said, in what he believed a masterly haphazard manner.
“White lawn—something with a thin stripe?”
“Well, something in a color—solid color.”
He waited patiently, considering solicitously twenty inconsequential styles, until the spruce clerk, casually producing the one thing, said:
“Would that appeal to you?”
“It’s rather nice,” he said, gazing at it. Entranced, he stared on. Then a new difficulty arose. People didn’t enter a shop just to purchase one shirt, and, besides, he was known. So he selected three other shirts and added the beautiful green thing to them in an unostentatious manner, saying:
“Send around these four shirts, will you? What’s the tax?”
“Very pleased to have you open an account, Mr. Stover,” said the clerk. “Pay when you like.”
Stover took this as a personal tribute to his public reputation. Likewise, it opened up to him startling possibilities, so he said in a bored way:
“I suppose I might just as well.”
“Thank you, Mr. Stover—thank you very much! Anything more? Some rather tasty neckties here for conservative dressers. Collars? Something like this would be very becoming to you. We’ve just got in a very smart line of silk socks. All the latest bon ton styles. Look them over—you don’t need to buy anything.”
When Stover finally was shown to the door, he had clandestinely and with great astuteness acquired the green shirt on the following terms:
One green shirt (imported) $ 5 Three decoy shirts 9 Four silk ties (to go with green shirt) 8 One dozen Roxburgh turndown collars (to complete same) 3 One dozen Gladstone collars (an indiscretion) 3 One half dozen silk socks (bon ton style) 12 Total for one green shirt $40
By the time he had made this mental calculation he was halfway up the block. Then, his extravagance overwhelming him, he virtuously determined to send back the Gladstone collars, to show the clerk that, while he was a man of fashion, he still had a will of his own.
Refreshed then by this firm conscientious resolve, he went down York Street, where he was hailed by Hungerford from an upper story, and went in to find a small group sitting in inspection of several bundles of tailoring goods which were being displayed in the center of the room by a little bowlegged Yankee with an open appealing countenance.
“I say, Dink, you ought to get in on this,” said Hungerford at his entrance.
“What’s the game?”
“Here’s a wonderful chance. Little bright-eyes here has got a lot of goods dirt cheap and he’s giving us the first chance. You see it’s this way: he travels for a firm and the end of the season he gets all the samples for himself, so he can let them go dirt cheap.”
“Half price,” said the salesman nodding. “Half price on everything.”
“I’ve bought a bundle,” said Troutman. “It’s wonderful goods.”
“How much?” said Stover, considering.
“Only twenty dollars for enough to make up a suit. Twenty’s right, isn’t it, Skenk?”
“Twenty for this—twenty-two for that. You remember I said twenty-two.”
“Let me see the stuff,” said Stover, as though he had been the mainstay of custom tailors all his life.
Now the crowd was a New York one, a little better groomed than their companions, affecting the same predilections for indiscreet vests and modish styles that would make them appreciative of the supremacy of green in the haberdashery arts.
“This is rather good style,” he said, with a glance at Troutman’s genteel trousers. “What sort of goods do you call it?”
“Imported Scotch cheviot,” said the salesman in a confidential whisper.
Stover looked again at Troutman, who tried discreetly, without being seen by the unsuspecting Yankee, to convey to him in a look the fact that it was a crime to acquire the goods at such a price.
Thus tipped off, Dink bought a roll that had in it a distinct reminiscent tinge of green, and saw it carried to the house, for fear the salesman should suddenly repent of the sacrifice.
At half past eight that night, as he and Tough McCarthy were painfully excavating a bit of Greek prose for the morrow, McNab came rushing in.
“Get out, Dopey, we’re boning,” said McCarthy, reaching for a tennis racket.
“Boys, the greatest bargain you ever heard,” said McNab excitedly, “come in before it’s too late!”
“Bargain?” said Stover, frowning, for the word was beginning to cloy.
McNab, with a show of pantomime, squinted behind the window curtains and opened the closet door.
“Look here, Dopey, you get out,” said Tough, wrathfully, “you’re faking.”
“I’m looking for customs officers,” said McNab mysteriously.
“What! I say, what’s this game?”
“Boys, we’ve got a couple of Cuba libre dagos rounded up and dancing on a string.”
“For the love of Mike, Dopey, be intelligible.”
“It’s cigars,” said McNab at last.
“Don’t want them!”
“But it’s smuggled cigars!”
“Oh!”
“Wonderful, pure Havanas, priceless, out of a museum.”
“You don’t say so.”
“And all for the cause of Cuba libre. You’re for Cuba libre, aren’t you?”
“Sure we are.”
“Well, these men are patriots.”
“Who found them?”
“Buck Waters. They were just going into Pierson Hall to let the sophs have all the candy. Buck sidetracked them and started them down our row. Hungerford bought twenty-five dollars’ worth.”
“Twenty-five? Holy cats!”
“For the cause of Cuba libre! Joe is very patriotic. All the boys came up handsomely.”
“Are they good cigars?” said Dink who, since his purchases of the day, was not exactly moved to tears by the financial needs of an alien though struggling nation.
“My boy, immense! Wait till you smoke one!”
At this moment there came a gentle scratching at the
