directing traffic at a crossing he applied for
information.

"Can you tell me where there's a dry-goods store in this man's town?"
he asked. "I fell into this here Broadway and got kinda messed up."

"Watchawant?"

"Suit o' clothes."

The traffic cop sized him up in one swift glance. "Siventh Avenue," he
said, and pointed in that direction.

Clay took his advice. He stopped in front of a store above which was
the legend "I. Bernstein, Men's Garments." A small man with sharp
little eyes and well-defined nose was standing in the doorway.

"Might you would want a good suit of qvality clothes, my friendt," he
suggested.

"You've pegged me right," agreed the Westerner with his ready smile.
"Lead me to it."

Mr. Bernstein personally conducted his customer to the suit department.
"I wait on you myself on account you was a stranger to the city," he
explained.

The little man took a suit from a rack and held it at arm's length to
admire it. His fingers caressed the woof of it lovingly. He evidently
could bring himself to part with it only after a struggle.

"Worsted. Fine goods." He leaned toward the range-rider and whispered
a secret. "Imported."

Clay shook his head. "Not what I want." His eyes ranged the racks.
"This is more my notion of the sort of thing I like." He pointed to a
blue serge with a little stripe in the pattern.

The eyes of Mr. Bernstein marveled at the discrimination of his
customer. "If you had taken an advice from me, it would have been to
buy that suit. A man gets a chance at a superior garment like that,
understan' me, only once in a while occasionally."

"How much?" asked Lindsay.

The dealer was too busy to hear this crass question. That suit, Clay
gathered, had been the pride of his heart ever since he had seen it
first. He detached the coat lovingly from the hanger and helped his
customer into it. Then he fell back, eyes lit with enthusiastic
amazement. Only fate could have brought together this man and this
suit, so manifestly destined for each other since the hour when Eve
began to patch up fig leaves for Adam.

"Like a coat of paint," he murmured aloud.

The cowpuncher grinned. He understood the business that went with
selling a suit in some stores. But it happened that he liked this suit
himself. "How much?" he repeated.

The owner of the store dwelt on the merits of the suit, its style, its
durability, the perfect fit. He covered his subject with arti