“Now, then,” continued his new-found friend warmly, “let me suggest this: You go ahead and look at the clarinet that this piking Louisville concern's got for sale if you want to, but don't buy. Just look—there's no harm in that. But don't invest.
“I'm on my way back to New York now to—to lay in my new lines for the trade. I'll see old Izzy the first thing after I blow in and I'll get the niftiest clarinet that ever played a tune—get it at actual cost, mind you! I'll stick it down into one of my trunks and bring it back with me down this way.
“Let's see”—he consulted a small memorandum book—“I ought to strike this territory again in about ten days or two weeks. We'll make it two weeks, to be sure. Um—this is Wednesday. I'll hit your town on Tuesday, the twenty-ninth—that's two weeks from yesterday. I ought to get in from Memphis sometime during the afternoon. I'll come to your bank to find you. You're always there on Tuesdays, ain't you?”
“Oh, yes,” said Emanuel. “Don't you remember my telling you that on Tuesdays Herb Kivil always left early to play tennis and I closed up?”
“So you did,” confirmed Mr. Caruthers. “I'd forgotten your telling me that.”
“For that matter,” supplemented Emanuel, “I'm there every day till three anyhow, and sometimes later; so if—”
“We'll make it Tuesday, the twenty-ninth, to be sure,” said Mr. Caruthers with an air of finality.
“If you should want the money now—” began Emanuel; and he started to haul out the little flat leather purse with the patent clasp wherein he carried his carefully saved cash assets.
With a large, generous gesture the other checked him.
“Hold on!” counselled Caruthers. “You needn't be in such a hurry, old boy. I don't even know what the thing is going to cost yet. Izzy'll charge it to me on the books and then you can settle with me when I bring it to you, if that's satisfactory.”