“Well, it was late, and anyway, it went down on my expense-account--gosh, if I’d been paying it instead of the firm, I’d ’a’ tramped the streets all night before I’d ’a’ let any hick tavern stick me seven great big round dollars, believe me! So I lets it go at that. Well, the clerk wakes a nice young bellhop--fine lad--not a day over seventy-nine years old--fought at the Battle of Gettysburg and doesn’t know it’s over yet--thought I was one of the Confederates, I guess, from the way he looked at me--and Rip van Winkle took me up to something-- I found out afterwards they called it a room, but first I thought there’d been some mistake-- I thought they were putting me in the Salvation Army collection-box! At seven _per_ each and every _diem_! Gosh!” “Yuh, I’ve heard the Rippleton was pretty cheesy. Now, when I go to Chicago I always stay at the Blackstone or the La Salle--first-class places.” “Say, any of you fellows ever stay at the Birchdale at Terre Haute? How is it?” “Oh, the Birchdale is a first-class hotel.” (Twelve minutes of conference on the state of hotels in South Bend, Flint, Dayton, Tulsa, Wichita, Fort Worth, Winona, Erie, Fargo, and Moose Jaw.) “Speaknubout prices,” the man in the velour hat observed, fingering the elk-tooth on his heavy watch-chain, “I’d like to know where they get this stuff about clothes coming down. Now, you take this suit I got on.” He pinched his trousers-leg. “Four years ago I paid forty-two fifty for it, and it was real sure-’nough value. Well, here the other day I went into a store back home and asked to see a suit, and the fellow yanks out some hand-me-downs that, honest, I wouldn’t put on a hired man. Just out of curiosity I asks him, ‘What you charging for that junk?’ ‘Junk,’ he says, ‘what d’ you mean junk? That’s a swell piece of goods, all wool--’ Like hell! It was nice vegetable wool, right off the Ole Plantation! ‘It’s all wool,’ he says, ‘and we get sixty-seven ninety for it.’ ‘Oh, you do, do you!’ I says. ‘Not from me you don’t,’ I says, and I walks right out on him. You bet! I says to the wife, ‘Well,’ I said, ‘as long as your strength holds out and you can go on putting a few more patches on papa’s pants, we’ll just pass up buying clothes.’” “That’s right, brother. And just look at collars, frinstance--” “Hey! Wait!” the fat man protested. “What’s the matter with collars? I’m selling collars! D’you realize the cost of labor on collars is still two hundred and seven per cent. above--”