ed them and never kept your word."

"And if I hadn't promised them?" the tailor returned with some show of
feeling. "They _wanted_ me to promise them--they made me--they
wouldn't have gone away without it. Sure. Every one wanted her things
before every one. You had got to think of that."

"But you had to think of what they would say."

"Say? Sometimes I thought they would _hit_ me. One lady said she had a
notion to slap me once. It's no way to talk."

"But you didn't seem to mind it."

"I didn't mind it for a good while. Then I couldn't stand it. So I
sold."

He shook his head sadly; but the customer had no comfort to offer him.
He asked when his clothes would be done, and the tailor told him when,
and then they were not. The new proprietor tried them on, but he would
not say just when they would be finished.

"We have a good deal of work already for some ladies that been
disappointed. Now we try a new way. We tell people exactly what we
do."

"Well, that's right," the customer said, but in his heart he was not
sure he liked the new way.

The day before his clothes were promised he dropped in. From the
curtained alcove he heard low murmurs, the voice of the new proprietor
and the voice of some lady trying on, and being severely bidden not to
expect her things at a time she suggested. "No, madam. We got too much
work on hand already. These things, they will not be done before next
week."

"I told you to-morrow," the same voice said to another lady, and the
new proprietor came out with an unfinished coat in his hand.

"I know you did, but I thought you would be better than your word, and
so I came to-day. Well, then, to-morrow."

"Yes, to-morrow," the new proprietor said, but he did not seem to have
liked the lady's joke. He did not look happy.

A few weeks after that the customer came for some little alterations
in his new suit.

In the curtained alcove he heard the murmurs of trying on, much
cheerfuller murmurs than before; the voice of a lady lifted in
gladness, in gaiety, and an incredible voice replying, "Oh, sure,
madam."

Then the old proprietor came out in his shirt-sleeves and slippers,
with his waistcoat-front full of pins and needles, just like the new
proprietor in former days.

"Why!" the customer exclaimed. "Have you bought back?"

"No. I'm just here like a journeyman already. The new man he want me
to come. He don't get along very well with his way. He's all right;
he's a good man an