He answered: "We are mighty proud you like our clothes. Tell you what you do. You go to such and such a store almost across the street from your hotel, call for Mr. A. or Mr. B. and tell him what you want. This is an off season for hot weather clothes. He may not have them. If not, tell him to measure you and call us and we will send down four or five to choose from."
"But," I said, "I want only one suit and in Indianapolis it would cost $25.50 and that is too much trouble for both of you for that money."
He said, "No amount of trouble is too much trouble for us to go to for a man who came all the way from Indianny to get one of our suits of clothes."
And that was what happened. The store was out, but I got the clothes.
THE PILOTS UNION
That evening we went to the Roosevelt Blue Room for 8 o'clock dinner and floor show. I noticed a modestly, yet well-dressed bald headed, rather heavy-set man of about 60 eating alone at the next table. The waiters all knew him as did many of the customers who passed.
I said to him, "You are alone this evening. Why not come over and join us in dessert?"
He replied, "I shall be delighted, and consider it an hon'r to be asked to join you and this charmin' young lady, but you must excuse me from dessert." Turning to his waiter, he said, "Bring the bucket over here if you will, Pierre." The bucket was a bucket of Burgundy, fairly well gone. Naturally he asked us to share it, and showed no resentment at our refusal.
It took only a few minutes to discover that our new friend was a "trifle high," and gaining rather than losing altitude, as time went on. He was a river pilot of long standing, and simply superb at modest elevation.
Putnam County is a bit shy on pilots, but not New Orleans. If I get the facts right, outbound and inbound ships have three pilots—river, bar and the ship's regular pilot. The last takes charge only when the ship is at sea. . . On leaving the wharf, the river pilot is in charge until the bar of the Mississippi is reached—the narrows or jetties where the river empties into the Gulf some 90 miles below New Orleans. . . The "bar pilot" steers the ship through the narrows and out into the Gulf. It is then that the ship's regular pilot takes charge.