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and that he would remain an Isenbaum till death.
    The decision was made. The son was born. The name was given. But Joseph lived to repent daily and hourly his magnanimous gesture. The boy was everything that a boy could be. Nothing could be too good for him. Eton or Harrow, Oxford or Cambridge, the best clubs, the best companionship, the best profession. The Bar and then Parlia ment? Harley Street? A Professorial Chair? The presidency of the Royal Academy? All these pinnacles of achievement appeared accessible to Dicky Bauminster. But to Ben Isenbaum?
    Torn between obstinacy and compunction, his father laboured to undo the harm of his rash oath.
    He endeavoured to enter Benjamin for one of the big public schools. But he learned by bitter experience that the son of Joseph Isenbaum, exporter of agricultural imple ments, might knock in vain at the gates of Eton or Harrow unless he could go sponsored by some more welcome visi tant. House-masters wrote politely to say that they had no vacancies. Non-committal replies left Joseph sick with ap prehension. Fear lest he should have ruined his son's chances lay like a weight of indigestion across his chest.
    But if he could secure a letter of introduction from an Etonian, a Bishop or a Peer, or even a plain gentleman of good standing, then the situation would be changed.
    Among his acquaintances were men who had been to public schools, but not one of them, Joseph felt, was the right man for his purpose.
    He was thinking of his need when he sat in Augustus Mitchell's show-room, handling patterns of gent's autumn suitings.
    Here in this sombre, spacious room he was surrounded by the Best that English tailoring could offer. The bales of cloth dripped to the floor their smooth dark drapery. The assistants trod silently up and down the rich fawn carpet, moving like acolytes at their priestly task. Here was taste not to be bought with money, and dignity which was incorruptible. Yet even here were barbs to prick Joseph's sensitive conscience. There was one characteristic of Mitchell's shop which he found almost intolerable.
    Mr. Mitchell was an autocrat. He was an undiminished Paternal Despot surviving from the Victorian era. He re fused to employ a member of a trade union; he refused to employ a professing agnostic; and he refused to call his assistants by their names. His ideal, he confided sometimes in more favoured clients, was Anonymous Service. While at his work no man of Mitchell's save Mitchell himself, was permitted to exercise Personality. His clients were attended not by Smith, Jones, or Robinson, but by assistants number 49, 17, or 63.
    To Joseph Isenbaum this custom was odious. He knew too well the importance of a name. Every time he saw Mitchell, he intended to revolt against the barbarous humiliation of his adult skilled, competent and dignified assistants. But he never did.
    To-day, however, as he sat brooding and dreaming, he became aware that farther down the room Mr. Mitchell himself was talking to a client. Too unhappy to choose autumn suitings, Joseph looked up idly, and began to watch the comedy displayed before him. For very soon he realized that something unusual was happening just beyond the palm in the brown china stand, and the oval table supporting copies of the Spectator, Debrett, Who's Who and the Tailor and Cutter.
    Mr. Mitchell's client was a tall, very fair, very slender and handsome gentleman, with a foppish, drawling, languid, elegant manner. He was exquisitely attired, a credit, thought Joseph, even to Mr. Mitchell's tailoring, and a consolation for the discomforts and encountering assistants number 17 and 63. He lounged against the long table which served in Mitchell's for a counter, and with the point of his stick drew patterns in the nap of Mitchell's turf-like carpet. Of all odd things in the world, he was discussing cinemas.
    Joseph bent over his cloths again; but he was listening.. The elegant gentleman was talking about films, Russian films, German