"Press o' work, nuthin'," said Harrison, jerking his hand, "take a half an hour off, an' fix that coat--to-marr' mornin'. I'll send around. Nine o'clock. See that you have it." He turned to go. "I regret," said Benwell, still politely, "that we cannot break our fixed rule, made in fairness to all our customers, that all work must take its turn." "Well," said Harrison, "you'll break it this time." "We will not," said Benwell, firmly. "That is the rule by which this house has built up its business. We have never broken it, and never shall. It was originally made purely in a spirit of business fairness and courtesy; but it has paid, as well." "Well," Sir Thomas leaned hard on the counter, and drove out the words, "it's a ba-ad rule"--the contractor said the "ba" part of the adjective with his mouth extended, red as a bull's, till the tongue was visible, flattened down within its crescent of big coarse white teeth--"a bad rule, I say, and it wun't pay you this time. I'll give this job to summun that's out fur business in th' proper way. Keen, see? On th' jump, see? Out fur th' old he-dollars--get me-e?" "That is your prerogative, sir," said Benwell. "An' I'll tell you somethin' more," the contractor, after moving away a step, returned to the counter and shook the coat in the air, "I live up on the Crescent. Yoe know that"--the contractor's head oscillated laterally, like a slowly-stirred punching-bag, while he gave this forth--"and yoe know that a bunch o' trade comes off o' that same Crescent street. You won't get none of it--none that I ken ketch an' head off. Understand!" Joseph Benwell, coming quietly around the end of the counter, opened the door leading to the street. Holding it open, he turned to Sir Thomas Harrison pleasantly. "I am very sorry, sir," he said, "that we have been unable to serve you. Good evening." Harrison, noisome with the gross perspiration of temper, brushed out. "He's sure one daisy, ain't he." This from Gary, the dyer's bookkeeper, whose shirt-sleeved elbow supported a slim torso that leaned above Benwell's ledger. The proprietor stooped and picked up a vociferous tweed hat--not his--which had lain for some time unnoticed on the floor, beneath its hook. "Sir Thomas," he said, in his mild and temperate way, as he dusted the hat off with his elbow and hung it up, "is a man who deserves great credit for his energy and push--even though sometimes that energy may be a bit misdirected. Never say uncomplimentary things, Gary--especially about one who has just paid us a distinct compliment by selecting us instead of one of our competitors to offer his bit of work to." Sir Thomas Harrison, about to step into his automobile, paused cholerically at the sound of a voice which interposed, humbly but audibly, with the apparently irrelevant observation: "Shoelaces, sir?"