He had a pair of suspenders with nickeldiver mountings, a tie, a lady's belt, a pair of low shoes, a shirt, a box of cigars, a package of cookies, and a half a dozen other things of divers and miscellaneous character. I poked them over and examined them, while he leaned against the desk with his legs crossed. He was beaming upon me.
“Well,” I said, “what is it—a bargain sale?”
Perkins leaned over and tapped the pile with his long forefinger.
“Aftermath!” he crowed. “Aftermath!”
“The dickens it is!” I exclaimed.
“And what has aftermath got to do with this truck? It looks like the aftermath of a notion store.” He tipped his “Air-the-Hair” hat over one ear, and put his thumbs in the armholes of his “ready-tailored” vest.
“Genius!” he announced. “Brains! Foresight! Else why Perkins the Great? Why not Perkins the Nobody?”
He raised the suspenders tenderly from the pile, and fondled them in his hands.
“See this?” he asked, running his finger along the red corded edge of the elastic. He took up the tie, and ran his nail along the red stripe that formed the selvedge on the back, and said, “See this?” He pointed to the red laces of the low shoes and asked, “See this?” And so through the whole collection.
“What is it?” he asked. “It's genius! It's foresight!”