can't be surprised at their behaving rustily with you if you never keep your word."

[Pg 85]

"Why, I assure you there are times when I don't know where to look, the way they go on. It is something awful. You ought to hear them once. And now they want the wote." He rearranged some pieces of tumbled goods at the table where the customer sat, and put together the disheveled leaves of the fashion-papers which looked as if the ladies had scattered them in their rage.

One day the customer heard two ladies waiting for their disappointments in the outer room while the tailor in the alcove was trying to persuade a third lady that positively her things would be sent home the next day before dark. The customer had now formed the habit of having his own clothes made by the tailor, and his system in avoiding disappointment was very simple. In the early fall he ordered a spring suit, and in the late spring it was ready. He never had any difficulty, but he was curious to learn how the ladies managed, and he listened with all his might while these two talked.

"I always wonder we keep coming," one of them said.

"I'll tell you why," the other said. "Because [Pg 86] he's cheap, and we get things from a fourth to a third less than we can get them anywhere else. The quality is first rate, and he's absolutely honest. And, besides, he's a genius. The wretch has touch. The things have a style, a look, a hang! Really it's something wonderful. Sure it iss," she ended in the tailor's accent, and then they both laughed and joined in a common sigh.

[Pg 86]

"Well, I don't believe he means to deceive any one."

"Oh, neither do I. I believe he expects to do everything he says. And one can't help liking him even when he doesn't."

"He's a good while getting through with her," the first lady said, meaning the unseen lady in the alcove.

"She'll be a good while longer getting through with him, if he hasn't them ready the next time," the second lady said.

But the lady in the alcove issued from it with an impredicable smile, and the tailor came up to the others, and deferred to their wishes with a sort of voiceless respect.

He gave the customer a glance of good-fellowship, and said to him, radiantly: "Your things all ready 

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