friends--Heaven knows I have not a better one in this country, Joe--
that I never talk business to you and George, your buyer. Now, I'll
tell you what is a fair proposition. You and George come over to my
sample room this afternoon at 1:30--I leave at four--and I will find
out how good your judgment and George's is when it comes to buying
hats.' Williams said: 'All right, 1:30 goes.'

[Illustration: "To-night we dance. To-morrow we sell clothes again."]

"I immediately left, having a definite appointment. I went to my
sample room and laid out in a line twelve different samples of hats,
the prices of which ranged, in jumps of three dollars per dozen, from
nine dollars to twenty-seven dollars. In the afternoon I went back to
the store and got Williams and George. As we entered the sample room,
I said: 'Now, Williams, we are over here--you, George and myself--to
see what you know about hats. If there is any line of goods in which
you should know values, certainly it is the line you have been
handling for six years. You have fingered them over every day and
ought to know the prices of them. Here is a line of goods right out of
the house from which you have been buying so long. The prices range
from nine dollars to twenty-seven dollars a dozen. Will it not be a
fair test of your judgment and George's for you to examine these goods
very carefully--everything but the brands--for these would indicate
the price--and lay out this line so that the cheaper hats will be at
one end of the bunch and the best ones at the other? Very well! Now
just straighten out this line according to price.'

"'Well, that looks fair to me,' said Williams.

"He and George went to work to straighten out the goods according to