Sam Lambert had the best clothing store in Medeena County—a corner store on the main street of Medeena opposite the Court House Square.
Medeena had four clothing stores, not counting The Blue Front, down by the Depot, with its collection of cheap watches in the window, a yellow guitar, two large accordions and a fiddle with a broken E string.
Everybody in the County knew Sam Lambert.
As a merchant and a citizen he was a whole bunch of live wires. A big-boned, free-hearted fellow—lucky enough to just escape being run for sheriff, as some thought he was too good natured, the “gang” was afraid he was not pliant enough, and Sam didn’t want to be away from the store.
Sam took great pride in his clothing business and kept pace with the most advanced ideas in the trade.
He was awake to the marvelous development of the ready-to-wear business. He carried the best and took a positive delight in each season’s new models.
He recalled the old days of “hand-me-downs,” and he had lived to see the two best tailors in Medeena take to bushelling “ready” garments, with less and less of that to be done—principally changing a button or shortening a trouser’s length.
Sam was broad-gauge in everything he did. He sold his goods at the marked price, for cash only—got a decent profit and told you so.
Why shouldn’t he? He had a sense of style. He was keenly alive to the artistry of clothes and his enthusiasm was contagious.
Sam was firmly convinced that a man has to spend money to make money in the clothing business.
He said that a part of the value you deliver to a customer consists in giving him a better opinion of himself: making him feel like a king for a day and that the best is none too good for him.
“A store”, he would tell the boys, “cannot be run on the low gear. You must keep her keyed up. Relax when the store is empty, but when you go to meet a customer put on the tension—take a brace—get spring into your step—learn to bunch your vitality and get it across. But keep your energy inside.
“Don’t bounce and don’t talk too much. Keep yourself in hand. Be quiet but alert.
“Concentrate! For the time being there is but one person in the world and that is the customer, and the most interesting thing in life is the thing he came in to see.