keywords: tailor-shop, small change, judge, millionaire
By this time I was tramping the streets again. The sight of a tailor-shop gave me a sharp longing to shed my rags, and to clothe myself decently once more. Could I afford it? No; I had nothing in the world but a million pounds. So I forced myself to go on by. But soon I was drifting back again. I asked if they had a misfit suit on their hands. The fellow I spoke to nodded his head towards another fellow, and gave me no answer.
I waited till he was done with what he was doing, then he took me into a back room, and overhauled a pile of rejected suits, and selected the rattiest one for me. I put it on. It didn't fit, and wasn't in any way attractive, but it was new, and I was anxious to have it; so I said with some diffidence: “It would be an accommodation to me if you could wait some days for the money. I haven't any small change about me.”
The fellow worked up a sarcastic expression of countenance, and said: “Oh, you haven't? Well, of course, I'd only expect gentlemen like you to carry large change.” I was nettled, and said: “My friend, you shouldn't judge a stranger always by the clothes he wears. I am quite able to pay for this suit; I simply didn't wish to put you to the trouble of changing a large note.” “I didn't mean any particular harm,” he said, “but I might say it wasn't quite your affair to jump to the conclusion that we couldn't change any note that you might happen to be carrying around. On the contrary, we can.” I handed the note to him, and said: “Oh, very well; I apologize.”
He received it with a smile, one of those large smiles which goes around all over, and looks like the place where you have thrown a brick in a pond; and then in the act of his taking a glimpse of the bill this smile froze solid, and turned yellow. I never before saw a smile caught like that, in perpetuity. The man stood there holding the bill, and looking like that, and the proprietor hustled up to see what was the matter, and said: “Well, what's up? What's the trouble?” I said: “There isn't any trouble. I'm waiting for my change.” “Come, come; get him his change, Tod; get him his change.” Tod retorted: “Get him his change! It's easy to say, sir; but look at the bill yourself.”
The proprietor took a look, made a dive for the pile of rejected clothing, and began to snatch it this way and that, talking all the time excitedly, and as if to himself: “Sell an eccentric millionaire such an unspeakable suit as that! Tod's a fool—a born fool. Ah, here's the thing I am after. Please get those things off, sir, and throw them in the fire. Do me the favor to put on this shirt and this suit; it's just the thing, the very thing—plain, rich, modest, and just ducally nobby—there! Trousers all right, they fit you to a charm, sir; now the waistcoat; aha, right again! Now the coat—Lord! Look at that, now! Perfect—the whole thing! I never saw such a triumph in all my experience.” I expressed my satisfaction. “Quite right, sir, quite right; But wait till you see what we'll get up for you on your own measure. Come, Tod, book and pen; get at it. Length of leg, 32”—and so on. Before I could get in a word he had measured me, and was giving orders for dress-suits, morning suits, shirts, and all sorts of things. “Tod, rush these things through, and send them to the gentleman's address without any waste of time. Set down the gentleman's address and—”“I'm changing my quarters. I will drop in and leave the new address.” I said. “Quite right, sir, quite right. One moment—let me show you out, sir. There—good day, sir, good day.”
