"Work is one of the few things I haven't tried. You need a good
salesman."
"No, I don't. I have seven already."
"Say, wouldn't you like the trade of the whole younger set? I can bring
you a lot of fresh customers--fellows like me."
"'Fresh customers' is right," laughed Kurtz, then sobered quickly.
"You're joking, of course?"
"I'm so serious I could cry. How much is it worth to you to make
clothes for my crowd?"
"Well--" the tailor considered. "Quite a bit."
"The boys like to see Dick trimmed--it's a matter of principle with
them never to let him win a bet--and they'd do anything for me. You're
the best tailor in the city, but too conservative. Now I'm going to
bring you fifty new accounts, every one good for better than two
thousand a year. That's a hundred thousand dollars. How much am I
offered? Going! Going!--"
"Wait a minute! Would you stick to me for six months if I took you on?"
"My dear Kurtz, I'll poultice myself upon you for life. I'll guarantee
myself not to slide, slip, wrinkle, or skid. Thirty years hence, when
you come hobbling down to business, you'll find me here."
Mr. Kurtz dealt in novelties, and the idea of a society salesman was
sufficiently new to appeal to his commercial sense.
"I'll pay you twenty per cent.," he offered, "for all the new names you
put on my books."
"Make it twenty-five on first orders and twenty on repeaters. I'll
bring my own luncheon and pay my car-fare."
"There wouldn't be any profit left," demurred Kurtz.
"Good! Then it's a bargain--twenty-five and twenty. Now watch me grab
the adolescent offshoots of our famous Four Hundred." Bob chased Ying
into a corner, captured him, then took a 'bus up the Avenue to the
College Club for luncheon.
At three o'clock he returned, accompanied by four flushed young men
whose names gave Kurtz a thrill. In spite of their modish appearance
they declared themselves indecently shabby, and allowed Bob to order
for them--a favor which he performed with a Rajah's lofty disregard of
expense. He sat upon one of the carved tables, teasing Ying, and
selecting samples as if for a quartette of bridegrooms. Being bosom
cronies of Mr. Cady, the four youths needed little urging. When they
had gone in to be measured Kurtz said guardedly:
"Whew! That's more stuff than I've sold in two weeks!"
"A mere trifle," Bob grinned, happily. "Say, Kurtz, this is the life!
This is the job for me--panhandling juvenile plutocrats--no office
hours, no heavy lifting, and Thursdays off. I'm going to make you
famous."
"You'll break me with another run like this."
"How much did they order?"
The proprietor ran over his figures incredulously.
"Twenty-four sack suits, two riding-suits, one knicker, four evening
suits, four dinner-suits, forty fancy waistcoats, sixteen evening
waistcoats, four pairs riding-breeches, four motor-coats, three Vicuna
overcoats, two ulsters. You don't think they're bluffing?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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