leather chair opposite the elevator.

His first letter was unstamped and addressed to him on hotel stationery;
the handwriting was an unfamiliar backhand and the inclosure brief:

DEAR MR. ARNHEIM: I am very sorry we could not keep our date, but I
got a message and I got to go in on the 7:10 train. Hope to see you
when I come back.

Sincerely, MYRA STERNBERGER.

Mr. Arnheim replaced the letter slowly in the envelope. There were two
remaining--a communication from a cloak-manufacturing firm and a check
from a banking-house. He read them and placed them in his inside coat
pocket. Then he settled the back of his neck against the rim of the
chair, crossed one leg over the other, rattled his newspaper open, and
turned to the stock-market reports.

One week later Mr. Simon Arnheim, a red portfolio under one arm, walked
into the mahogany, green-carpeted, soft-lighted establishment of an
importing house on Fifth Avenue.

Mrs. S.S. Schlimberg, senior member, greeted him in her third-floor
office behind the fitting-rooms.

"Well, well! _Wie geht's_, Arnheim? I thought it was gettin' time for
you."

Mr. Arnheim shook hands and settled himself in a chair beside the desk.
"You know you can always depend upon me, madame, to look you up the
minnit I get back. Don't I always give you first choice?"

Mrs. Schlimberg weighed a crystal paper-weight up and down in her pudgy,
ringed hands. "None of your fancy prices for me this season, Arnheim.
There's too many good things lyin' loose. That's why I got my openin'
a month sooner. I got a designer came in special off her vacation with
some good things."

Mr. Arnheim winked. "Schlim, I got some models here to show you that you
can't beat. When you see 'em you'll pay any price."

"I can't pay your fancy prices no more. I paid you too much for that
plush fad last winter, and it never was a go."

Mr. Arnheim chuckled. "When you see a couple of the designs I brought
over this trip you'll be willin' to pay me twice as much as for the
hobble. Come on--own up, Schlim; you can't beat my styles. Why, you can
copy them for your import-room and make ninety per cent, on any one of
'em!"

"They won't pay the prices, I tell you. Some of my best customers have
gone over to other houses for the cheaper goods."

"You can't put over domestic stuff on your trade, Schlim. You might as
well admit it. You gotta sting your class of trade in order to have 'em
appreciate you."

"No