d rectified."

"You were very quick about your selections," I said. "May I ask how
you knew that you might not have found something to suit you better in
some of the other stores? But probably you are required to buy in your
own district."

"Oh, no," she replied. "We buy where we please, though naturally most
often near home. But I should have gained nothing by visiting other
stores. The assortment in all is exactly the same, representing as it
does in each case samples of all the varieties produced or imported by
the United States. That is why one can decide quickly, and never need
visit two stores."

"And is this merely a sample store? I see no clerks cutting off goods
or marking bundles."

"All our stores are sample stores, except as to a few classes of
articles. The goods, with these exceptions, are all at the great
central warehouse of the city, to which they are shipped directly from
the producers. We order from the sample and the printed statement of
texture, make, and qualities. The orders are sent to the warehouse,
and the goods distributed from there."

"That must be a tremendous saving of handling," I said. "By our
system, the manufacturer sold to the wholesaler, the wholesaler to the
retailer, and the retailer to the consumer, and the goods had to be
handled each time. You avoid one handling of the goods, and eliminate
the retailer altogether, with his big profit and the army of clerks it
goes to support. Why, Miss Leete, this store is merely the order
department of a wholesale house, with no more than a wholesaler's
complement of clerks. Under our system of handling the goods,
persuading the customer to buy them, cutting them off, and packing
them, ten clerks would not do what one does here. The saving must be
enormous."

"I suppose so," said Edith, "but of course we have never known any
other way. But, Mr. West, you must not fail to ask father to take you
to the central warehouse some day, where they receive the orders from
the different sample houses all over the city and parcel out and send
the goods to their destinations. He took me there not long ago, and
it was a wonderful sight. The system is certainly perfect; for
example, over yonder in that sort of cage is the dispatching clerk.
The orders, as they are taken by the different departments in the
store, are sent by transmitters to him. His assistants sort them and
enclose each class in a carrier-box by itself. The dispatching clerk
has a doz