Mr. Arnheim, in his invariable soft collar and shadow-checked suit, skirted the edge of the crowd in matinal ill humor and deposited his room key at the desk.  The clerk gave him in return a folded newspaper and his morning mail.

Mr. Arnheim’s morning aspect was undeniable.  He suggested too generous use of soap and bay rum, and his eyes had not lost the swollen heaviness that comes with too much or too little sleep.  He yawned and seated himself in the heavy 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.”