Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1924 — page 92: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

like flags. THE GREEN new ones cost practically as much as on Broadway. A salesman pounced out of a doorway and begged him to look- at the superior bargains inside, but Dobell was wary of sidewalk salesmen and dubious about bargains that were too good to be displayed, so he walked on. © Two blocks farther on he stopped and uttered an exclamation. There, on a coat hanger, half concealed by a badly worn coat, was precisely the garment he had in mind. A big, burly, shaggy overcoat, it was, heavy and expensive looking, cut on swagger lines,.and, best of all, its color was such that. it could not fail to attract atten- _ tion. Tt was a light green, with dark blue stripes that "subdivided it into squares as big as soda biscuits. Dobell eyed it eagerly. In that coat, a fellow could make even ew York sit up and look at him. The alert storekeeper dashed out. ‘“‘ Sheap!”’ he cried, and waved his-hands “ Vorn so little you’d never no- tice it was second-hand if I didn’t tell you, but I let it go for only forty dollars, half price’ an’ a bargain like you'll never see nowhere else in all N’ York.” ? Forty was more than Dobell had counted on paying, nevertheless, he allowed the deal- er to put the coat on him. It fitted per- fectly. . “Come inside. Vait till you see your- self in the glass yet. Sheap at sixty dollars, I tell you. Every cent of eighty it cost.” The merchant clicked on electric lights. . “Fit you like the skin on the banana. Lookit the label—Fifth Avenue yet!” The label appeared genuine; the coat seemed to be everything that Dobell de- sired. But the price was too high. “ Give you twenty-five,” he offered. The Hebrew called upon Providence to protect him from the ravages of customers. “ ‘Thirty-five an’ take it avay,” he cried. “Twenty-five,” Dobell repeated. The merchant paced up and down, pull-. ing his beard and imploring heaven to come to his rescue. “ Thirty dollars, IT make you the price. Take it avay quick before my mind I change.” Again Dobell eyed the splendid garment, then held out three ten dollar bills, 6A OVERCOAT, ‘* Receipt, please,” he said. The. merchant added the bills to a roll as big as a tomato can and jammed the wad back into his greasy pocket. “No receipt,” he ‘said. ‘I gif you the coat for half nodding an’ that’s the end. I got no time for write receipt.” Dobell was about to demand one when he recollected the vocational expert’s words, to the effect that he had a predilection for trifling details and that such a habit, while estimable in a clerk, only handicapped a salesman. After all, what did a receipt mat- . ter? He had obtained thousands of them and never had been benefited thereby. Since he aspired to be a salesman, he must learn to disregard such. trifles. “ All right; nevér-mind the receipt,” he | said to the storekeeper, and went out, car- rying his old coat-and wearing the new one. He had not proceeded two blocks before he felt in better spirits. The expert was wrong! The man had predicted that Do- bell would feel embarrassed in a flashy over- coat, yet here Dobell was, wearing the most striking overcoat on the street with no more embarrassment than a film beauty feels in a bathing suit. Nor did Dobell feel embarrassed when he entered his new place of employment on Monday morning. It was a huge office, with scores of desks arranged in rows, and already dozens of the employees, men and young women, were on hand, preparing to begin the day’ s work. He felt every eye upon him as he stopped at the office man- ager’s desk, and when he walked down the Jong aisle to the coat room he knew he was the envy of every man in the place. He hung up his gorgeous treen coat with a flourish and began his work with a com- fortable feeling that he had made a good start in his pursuit of a selling career. At noon he slipped on the big, shaggy garment with a degree of pride that he never had felt before in any coat, and, as he walked up the aisle, he could not help but notice that more than one of the pre- possessing young ladies in the place was paying him the not unwelcome compliment of approving glances. When he returned from luncheon the of- fice manager beckoned to him. comiicloooks CO