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but
opened at random.
"Supertoned Banjos," he read, beginning at the heading; and, running
his eye down the different varieties, paused at "Pride of the Plantation,
a full-sized, well-made, snappy-toned instrument at a very moderate
price. 12 T 4031/4."
The explorer shook his head. Abovestairs rested a guitar (the Pearletta,
12 S 206, price $7.95) which he had purchased at the instance of
Messrs. Sears-Roebuck's insinuating representation as set forth in
catalogue item 12 S 01942, "Self-mastery of the Guitar in One Book,
with All Chords, Also Popular Solos That Can Be Played Almost at
Sight." The nineteen-cent instruction-book had gone into the fire after
three days of unequal combat between it and its owner, and the latter
had subsequently learned something of the guitar (and more of life)
from a Mexican-American girl with lazy eyes and the soul of a
capricious and self-indulged kitten, who had come uninvited to
Manzanita to visit an aunt, deceased six months previously. With a
mild pang of memory for those dreamy, music-filled nights on the
desert, the youth decided against further experiments in stringed
orchestration.
Telescopes turned up next. He lingered a moment over 20 T 3513, a
nickel-plated cap pocket-glass, reflecting that with it he could discern
any signal on the distant wooded butte occupied by Miss Camilla Van
Arsdale, back on the forest trail, in the event that she might wish a wire
sent or any other service performed. Miss Camilla had been very kind
and understanding at the time of the parting with Carlotta, albeit with a
grimly humorous disapproval of the whole inflammatory affair; as well

as at other times; and there was nothing that he would not do for her.
He made a neat entry in a pocket ledger (3 T 9901) against the time
when he should have spare cash, and essayed another plunge.
Arctics and Lumberman's Overs he passed by with a grin as
inappropriate to the climate. Cod Liver Oil failed to interest him, as did
the Provident Cast Iron Range and the Clean-Press Cider Mill. But he
paused speculatively before Punching Bags, for he had the clean pride
of body, typical of lusty Western youth, and loved all forms of exercise.
Could he find space, he wondered, to install 6 T 1441 with its Scientific
Noiseless Platform & Wall Attachment (6 T 1476) in the portable
house (55 S 17) which, purchased a year before, now stood in the
clearing behind the station crammed with purchases from the
Sears-Roebuck wonderbook. Anyway, he would make another note of
it. What would it be like, he wondered, to have a million dollars to
spend, and unlimited access to the Sears-Roebuck treasures. Picturing
himself as such a Croesus, he innocently thought that his first act would
be to take train for Chicago and inspect the warehoused accumulations
of those princes of trade with his own eager eyes!
He mused humorously for a moment over a book on "Ease in
Conversation." ("No trouble about conversation," he reflected; "the
difficulty is to find anybody to converse with," and he thought first of
Carlotta, and then of Miss Camilla Van Arsdale, but chiefly of the latter,
for conversation had not been the strong point of the passionate,
light-hearted Spanish girl.) Upon a volume kindly offering to teach
astronomy to the lay mind without effort or trouble (43 T 790) and
manifestly cheap at $1.10, he bestowed a more respectful attention, for
the desert nights were long and lonely.
Eventually he arrived at the department appropriate to his age and the
almost universal ambition of the civilized male, to wit, clothing.
Deeply, judiciously, did he meditate and weigh the advantages as
between 745 J 460 ("Something new--different--economical--efficient.
An all-wool suit embodying all the features that make for clothes
satisfaction. This announcement is of tremendous importance"--as one
might well have inferred from the student's rapt expression) and 776 J

017 ("A double-breasted, snappy, yet semi-conservative effect in
dark-green worsted, a special social value"), leaning to the latter
because of a purely literary response to that subtle and deft appeal of
the attributive "social." The devotee of Messrs. Sears-Roebuck was an
innately social person, though as yet his gregarious proclivities lay
undeveloped and unsuspected by himself. Also he was of a literary
tendency; but of this he was already self-conscious. He passed on to
ulsters and raincoats, divagated into the colorful realm of neckwear,
debated scarf-pins and cuff-links, visualized patterned shirtings, and
emerged to dream of composite sartorial grandeurs which, duly
synthesized into a long list of hopeful entries, were duly filed away
within the pages of 3 T 9901, the pocket ledger.
Footsteps shuffling along the right of way dispelled his visions. He
looked up to see two pedestrians who halted at his movement. They
were paired typically of that strange fraternity, the hobo,