"And it's no use trying to do anything on your own hook. There was old man Blackmar, head of the Blackmar and Jennings Ribbon Company; he could manufacture ribbons to beat any French factory going, _if_ he got the designs from France. Every time he tried to have one designed by a perfectly good American designer, the ribbon didn't sell. It didn't look so very different, but it wouldn't sell. You'd have thought he'd have learned something out of seeing that happen every time he tried it, wouldn't you? But he never did. Why, I was honestly sorry for him, five or six years ago when all of a sudden the styles went dead against ribbons or any other trimming for hats. It pretty near ruined him, coming after the modistes had been piling everything they could buy on top of their hats. But he didn't know enough to take his medicine without making a face. He couldn't get it through his head that he was up against a bigger proposition than _he_ was, than anybody is. He came to me and he said: 'Williams, I'll give you fifteen thousand dollars, cash, in your hand, if you'll steer things over in Paris so's to bring hat-trimmings back into style; ribbons of course if you can, but if not, most any kind of trimmings. I can alter our machines to do braids and such. This craze for just the naked hat-shapes with one little rag of an ornament, I tell you, it'll send me into the bankruptcy court.' "I was very sorry for him and I said so, and I said I'd do anything to help him out except try to slap back the Hudson river with the flat of my hand. He said he was sick of hearing me always get off that same old guff, and if I really wanted to, I could. 'Why, they tell me every modiste in Paris calls you "uncle." With plenty of money you could get on the right side of them and get them to launch trimmed styles.' "I just threw up my hands at that. I saw he didn't know any more about the innerds of his business than a babe unborn. I said to him: 'Why, old man, you don't suppose for a minute that the modistes in Paris _invent_ the styles, make 'em up out of their heads? They haven't got any more to say about what it's to be than you or me. All they can do is to take the style that's going to arrive in six months, and put it into silk and felt and straw. They can't have it the way they _want_ it any more than the priestess of something-or-other could say what she wanted, when they put her over the oracle-hole, filled her up with gas, and told her to make an oracle.' "Blackmar was sore as a boil at me, and said if I wouldn't do it he'd give the job to Pierce. Pierce was buying for Condit and Vergary in those days. I said he could throw away all the money he wanted to, but _I_ wouldn't help him spill it.