“I can't say as I ever did. I don't seem to place them,” admitted Emanuel.
“If you're interested in a clarinet you ought to know about them, because Gatling & Moore are just the biggest wholesale dealers in musical instruments in the United States; that's all—just the whole United States. And I—the same fellow that's sitting right here facing you—I travel this territory for Gatling & Moore. Didn't I say this was a small world?”
A small world indeed—and a cozily comfortable one as well, seeing that by its very compactness one was thrown into contact with so pleasing a personality as this Mr. John Caruthers betrayed. This was the thought that exhilarated Mr. Emanuel Moon as he answered:
“You sell clarinets? Then you can tell me exactly what I ought to pay—”
“No; don't get me wrong,” Mr. Caruthers hastened to explain. “I said I travelled for Gatling & Moore. You see, they sell everything, nearly—musical instruments is just one of their lines. I handle—er—sporting goods—playing cards, poker chips, guns, pistols, athletic supplies; all like that, you understand. That's my branch of the business; musical goods is another branch.
“But what I was going to suggest was this: Izzy Gottlieb, who's the head of the musical department in the New York office, is one of the best friends I've got on this earth. If I was to walk in and say to Izzy—yes, even if I was to write in to him and tell him I had a friend who was figuring on buying a clarinet—I know exactly what old Izzy would do. Izzy would just naturally turn the whole shop upside down until he found the niftiest little old clarinet there was in stock, and as a favour to me he'd let us have it at just exactly cost. That's what good old Izzy would do in a blooming minute. Altogether it ought to come to about half what you'd pay for the identical same article out of a retail place down in this country.”
“But could you, sir—would you be willing to do that much for a stranger?” Stress of emotion made Emanuel's voice husky.
“If you don't believe I would do just that very thing, why, a dime'll win you a trip to the Holy Land!” answered back the engaging Caruthers beamingly and enthusiastically.
Then his tone grew earnest: “Listen here, Moon: no man that I take a liking to is a stranger to me—not any more. And I've got to own up to it—I like you. You're my kind of a man—frank, open, on the level; and yet not anybody's easy mark either. I'll bet you're a pretty good hand at sizing up people offhand yourself. Oh, I knew you'd do, the minute I laid eyes on you.”
“Thank you; much obliged,” murmured Emanuel. To all intents he was overcome.