"Mine's too large." He took mine and examined it critically, feeling the quality and the texture.
"It's no as gude as mine; I wudna swop."
"Why, yours doesn't fit you and mine would."
"Ay, but the quality, lad, look at the quality o' mine."
"It's just exactly the same as mine."
"Naething o' the kind," he said, "the quartermaster is a particular friend o' mine and he gie me one especially."
"He did, like ducks."
"O vera weel. Besides, I dinna mind a little thing like that; it's the quality. But I'll tell you what I'll do," he said, "if you want the cap an' will gie me an extra shillin' on account o' the quality, I'll maybe let ye hae it."
I spent no further time arguing with him; I realized at once he was the original one hundred per cent efficiency man who bought something from a Jew and sold it to another Jew at a profit. I gave him the quarter. He took it, but before giving me his cap, he took mine, tried it on carefully (they were identical in every particular except the size), then handed me his, gave me a wink and walked off. I felt I had really gotten my twenty-five cents' worth.
The happiest people in Valcartier that time were the tailors; they reaped a harvest from our repairs and alterations. An old political campaigner in the battalion suggested that the tailors should get busy with the administration and arrange to throw their support to the government if the chief of staff would agree to retain the services of the quartermasters who were such marvelously strange guessers at the size of the average man. We laughed ourselves to sleep that night.