The Argosy, Christmas 1912 — page 160: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

146 “Am I all right?” “As far as I see, yes. You're still the rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed home- wrecker that you’ve always been—”’ “Thanks!” the other — sniffed. “Well, if there’s nothing the matter with me that fellow must be an old customer of Hotchkiss’s. Why else should he have singled him out?” “Let’s wait,” suggested Smith, “and put it up to Hotchkiss when he finishes the sale.” From the rear of the store, the two young men watched Hotchkiss fit his customer with shoes, take his money, bring back the change, and escort the buyer to the door. Then they called him over. “Who was that chap?” asked. : “Who was he?” repeated Hotch- kiss blankly. ‘‘ Why, how the deuce should I know? I-never saw him in here before! ” “Barlow thought he might have been an old customer of yours,” Smith explained. ‘What made you think that?” and Hotchkiss turned to Frank. In a word, Barlow informed him of all that had happened in the past four days. How nobody who came into the store would permit him to wait on them, and that he had just then been shoved aside by the man who had singled out Hotchkiss instead. “ But Pil swear I never saw the fel- low before to-day!” the latter de- clared. “Have you waited on any old cus- tomers since the first of the week?” inquired Barlow anxiously. “ This Smith isn’t the first time since Monday that . a person has refused to have anything to do with me and gone direct to you, Hotchkiss!” “Nobody has bought anything of me,’ the latter answered slowly, “ that I ever remember to have seen before.” Barlow swallowed hard. “Then why have I been singled out, ostracized, boycotted, by every one?” Hotchkiss looked him over. THE ARGOSY. ““ Maybe it’s your hair,” he said. Frank clutched his head. “My hair?” he echoed stupidly. ‘“ What—what on earth has that got to do with it?” “Why, don’t you see?-” and Hotch- kiss giggled inanely. “You're a blond. All the rest of us fellows are dark. Perhaps the people who’ve been coming into the store of late don’t like men with yellow hair!” Barlow snorted. “You've got some great little ideas, Hotchkiss!” he said. ‘“ That suggestion’s N. G., eh?” “Of course it is!” Frank snapped. “There might be some people with an idiotic prejudice against a man’s com- plexion who have been in this store re- cently. But it’s absurd to suppose that such a prejudice has been shared by every single one of them. “Well, I only thought—” Hotchkiss began. And then Smith interrupted. “ Cheese it!’’ he said. ‘ The boss! ” The manager was just coming in through the street door. Barlow felt a wild impulse to go straight to his em- ployer and tell him the reason’ for his continued inability to sell goods. But wasn’t that impulse wild? What could he give the manager as the reason for his ghastly dearth of sales? He couldn’t tell him that he was the butt of a natural, but unfortunate, situation; a new man up against a run of old customers who shut him out to make their purchases exclusively of their favorite clerks. For now to tell the boss that would be a lie. Barlow felt an unpleasant prickling of his scalp as he realized what that admission of the state of affairs meant. It wasn’t a preference for the other salesmen that any of the callers at the store in the last few days had felt. It was a prejudice against him—its cause unknown and seemingly beyond dis- covery. Trying to solve the problem, he gave his thoughts to the consideration of oO COMmMiclhoo S CO