“Yes, sir,” replied Harry obediently. “Shall I go now?”
“Yes, and get back as soon as you can.” Mr. Barton’s grim features relaxed into what he evidently considered a pleasant smile.
Taking the box under his arm, Harry started toward the men’s coat room for his cap. As he walked, he examined the bit of paper. It was a printed form of store pass, and at the bottom was written, “On store business. Barton.”
The man at the time-desk examined the slip indifferently, made a mysterious mark on it with a red pencil, and shoved it back to Harry. It was not until Harry had left the store behind and walked at least a block that he took the card bearing the tailor’s address from his pocket and again glanced at the street and number. Martin Brothers’ store fronted on Commerce Street. It took up the entire space between numbers five and six hundred. But it was to number 1855 that Mr. Barton was sending him. Twelve long, city blocks lay before him. The boy looked rather dismayed; not because he objected to the long walk in the crisp, autumn air, but because of the time it would take him to go to the shop and return. Harry wondered vaguely if it were not customary to allow the messengers their carfare when on outside business for the store. Perhaps Mr. Barton had forgotten all about it. He was decidedly absent-minded. Even in the short time Harry had been stationed at the exchange desk, he had discovered that. Had he not heard Miss Welch scold frequently over Mr. Barton’s mistakes, due to his absent-mindedness? But he was so crabbed that she never dared call him to account openly for them. She had to content herself with throwing out barbed insinuations, to which he never appeared to pay the slightest attention.
Harry soon forgot his brief uneasiness over the distance to his destination and trudged briskly along the city streets, happy in being out in the fresh air. After twenty minutes fast walking he arrived at the shop. Over the door hung a large sign, which read, “A. Jacoby, Repairing, Cleaning and Pressing Garments While You Wait.” It was followed by a list of prices.
Harry delivered the box into the hands of a stout, gray-haired man with a red face and a decided German accent. The man opened the box. In it lay a blue serge suit. On top of the suit lay a note. The tailor read the note, then motioning Harry to a chair he said, “Sit down and vait. It vill be a little while only before I can do dot shob for Meester Parton.”
The old man took the suit over one arm and trotted off into an adjoining room with it.
Harry sat down obediently enough. He glanced curiously about him at the rows of suits, single coats and trousers that hung on racks set on three sides of the room, each garment bearing a large white tag. Harry always made it a point to be interested in all that he saw, but tailoring and repairing did not in the least appeal to him. After twenty minutes had passed he began to feel slightly impatient. Mr. Barton had said it would not take him long. When twice twenty minutes had slipped away, he grew uneasy. It had been twenty minutes past two o’clock when he left the store. It was now twenty minutes past three. A whole hour had vanished.
“Won’t Mr. Barton’s suit be ready soon, sir?” he asked the gray-haired proprietor politely, as Mr. Jacoby waddled into view at the sound of the door-bell.
“Ven it ees hready, I dell you, poy,” the old man returned placidly, then went on explaining, to a beetle-browed young man who had just come in, why it would be advisable to steam clean a much-soiled gray suit he had brought into A. Jacoby’s dominion for renovation.