“John,” he said, to his junior partner, “you shall go on this year to buy the goods.”
Platt looked tired.
“I’m told,” said he, “that New York is a plumb dead town; but I’ll go. I can take a whirl in San Antone for a few days on my way and have some fun.”
Two weeks later a man in a Texas full dress suit—black frock coat, broad-brimmed soft white hat, and lay-down collar 3–4 inch high, with black, wrought iron necktie—entered the wholesale cloak and suit establishment of Zizzbaum & Son, on lower Broadway.
Old Zizzbaum had the eye of an osprey, the memory of an elephant and a mind that unfolded from him in three movements like the puzzle of the carpenter’s rule. He rolled to the front like a brunette polar bear, and shook Platt’s hand.
“And how is the good Mr. Navarro in Texas?” he said. “The trip was too long for him this year, so? We welcome Mr. Platt instead.”
“A bull’s eye,” said Platt, “and I’d give forty acres of unirrigated Pecos County land to know how you did it.”
“I knew,” grinned Zizzbaum, “just as I know that the rainfall in El Paso for the year was 28.5 inches, or an increase of 15 inches, and that therefore Navarro & Platt will buy a $15,000 stock of suits this spring instead of $10,000, as in a dry year. But that will
[71]
