‘He wants a snit of clothes.’
‘Have you anything that’ll fit me,’ asked the big boy.
That riled Geiger. He thought the fellow was making fun of him, and he yelled :
‘ Do you think I make clothes for the Sierras and keep ’em in stock?’
‘Then you must make me a suit, said the big boy. ‘Make you a suit,’ said Geiger; ‘why it would cost you about three thousand dollars, young man.
‘All right,’ said Calaveras; ‘I must have a suit of clothes; besides, my pa is rich.’
‘He won’t be, though, if you tackle a tailor very often,’ muttered Geiger.
‘Well, to make a long story short, a bargain was at last struck. Geiger was to make the suit; and the Calaverous youth was to pay one dollar a yard for the cloth, three dollars a day to the workmen while the suit was building, and all incidental expenses. He was to pay $1,000 cash, $1,000 in two years and the balance in three years, to be secured by a mortgage on his father’s farm.
‘Oh, John, arn’t you—’
‘Now, don’t be skeptical, wife, I might not have believed it myself if I hadn’t been there to see. Well, as I was saying—let’s see; what was I say-ing? Oh, yes. Well, Geiger he sent the boy right back to town with instructions to bring the surveyor, but—
‘The surveyor, John! What for?’
‘Why, to take the young man’s measure, of course. The tape measure method was clearly out of the question, and it would have taken too long to have scaflolded around the fellow as you would do in painting a church steeple. I, myself, suggested the
