He threw off all restraint. “Old shoes,” he said, “old shoes.” He
pointed at them.
“I have walked two hundred miles among the moonshiners. They wear
brogans like these.” But his manner plainly said that his organization
did not need cranks climbing over the mountains to tell them things.
“Your New York letter did not say you were walking. It said you ‘would
arrive.’”
He began to point again. “Frayed trousers! And the lining of your coat
in rags!”
“I took the lining of the coat for necessary patches.”
“A blue bandanna round your neck!”
“To protect me from sunburn.”
He rose and hit the table. “And no collar!”
“Oh yes, I have a collar.” I drew it from my hip pocket. It had had a
two hundred mile ride, and needed a bath.
“I should like to have it laundered, but I haven’t the money.”
“_Get_ the money.”
“No,” I said, “but I will get a collar.”
I entered a furnishing and tailor shop around the corner. I asked for
the proprietor. He showed me collars.
“Two for a quarter?”
“Yes.”
“Now I have here a little brochure I sell for twenty-five cents. In
fact it is a poem, well worth the money. I will let you have it for
half price, that is, one collar.”
“We are selling collars.”
“I am selling the poem.”
I turned my Ancient Mariner eye on him. I recited the most mesmeric
rhymes.
He repeated, “We are selling collars.”
Evidently the eye was out of order. I tried argument.
“Don’t you think I need a collar?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you think this one would fit this shirt?”
“Yes.”
“I renew my offer.”
He sternly put the box away.
So I said, “If I must face my friends in Asheville without this
necessary ornament, you shall blush. I have done my duty, and refuse to
blush.”
I looked up a scholar from Yale, Yutaka Minakuchi, friend of old
friends, student of philosophy, in which he instructed me much, first
lending me a collar. He became my host in Asheville. It needs no words
of mine to enhance the fame of Japanese hospitality....
And I had a friend in a distant place, whom, for fancy’s sake, we
will call the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid. Let him remain a mystery. We
will reveal this much. Had he known the truth, he would have sent
Greek slaves riding on elephants, laden with changes of raiment. He
discerned, at least, that I was in a barbarous land, for at length a
long package containing a sword arrived from the court of the Caliph
(to speak in parables). I exchanged the weapon at a pawnshop for
_money_, all in one bill--_money_--against which I had so many times
sworn eternal warfare, which had been my hoodoo in the past, and was
destined to be again. But this time, such are the whims of fate, the
little while it was with me it brought me only good.
I entered the furnishing store. The proprietor was terribly busy,
but my glittering eye was in condition. I persuaded him, by dint of
repetition, to show me his collars. I treated him as though we had not
met.
“Fifteen cents apiece?”
“Yes.”
“I will take _one_.” I gave the bill. He had to send a boy out for the
change. I put the silver in my pocket, and rattled it. He wrapped up
the collar, while I studied his cheeks. He blushed like a maid, bless
his tender heart, and in his sweet confusion he knew that I knew it.
The streets of Asheville kept shouting to me: “Let us praise Man, when
he builds cities, and grows respectable, and cringes to money, and
becomes a tailor, and loves collars with all his heart.”
* * * * *