Black Spring by Henry Miller Page A

level with the floor of our tailor shop. If it could not be brought to within a quarter of an inch exactitude there was no tip and Albert with his brittle bones and his bent spine would have a devil of a time choosing the right buttons to go with his dotted vest, his latest dotted vest. (When Albert died I inherited all his vests-they lasted me right through the war.) If it happened, as was sometimes the case, that the old man was across the street taking a little nip when Albert arrived, then somehow the whole day became disorganized. I remember periods when Albert grew so vexed with the old man that sometimes we did not see him for three days; meanwhile the vest buttons were lying around on little cards and there was talk of nothing but vest buttons, vest buttons, as if the vest itself didn’t matter, only the buttons. Later, when Albert had grown accustomed to the old man’s careless ways-they had been growing accustomed to each other for twenty-seven years-he would give us a ring to notify us that he was on the way. And just be fore hanging up he would add: “I suppose it’s all right my coming in at eleven o’clock … it won’t inconvenience you?” The purport of this little query was twofold. It meant-“I suppose you’ll have the decency to be on hand when I arrive and not make me fiddle around for a halfhour while you swill it down with your cronies across the street.” And, it also meant-“At eleven o’clock I suppose there is little danger of bumping into a certain individual bearing the initials H. W.?” In the twenty-seven years during which we made perhaps 1,578 garments for the three Bendix brothers it so happened that they never met, not in our presence at least. When Albert died R. N. and H. W. both had mourning bands put on their sleeves, on all the left sleeves of their sack coats and overcoats-that is, those which were not black coats-but nothing was said of the deceased, nor even who he was. R. N., of course, had a good excuse for not going to the funeral-his legs were gone. H. IN. was too mean and too proud to even bother offering an excuse.
    About ten o’clock was the time the old man usually chose to go down for his first nip. I used to stand at the window facing the hotel and watch George Sandusky hoisting the big trunks on to the taxis. When there were no trunks to be hoisted George used to stand there with his hands clasped behind his back and bow and scrape to the clients as they swung in and out of the revolving doors. George Sandusky had been scraping and bowing and hoisting and opening doors for about twelve years when I first came to the tailor shop and took up my post at the front window. He was a charming, softspoken man with beautiful white hair, and strong as an ox. He had raised this ass-kissing business to an art. I was amazed one day when he came up the elevator and ordered a suit from us. In his off hours he was a gentleman, George Sandusky. He had quiet tastes-always a blue serge or an Oxford gray. A man who knew how to conduct himself at a funeral or a wedding.
    After we got to know each other he gave me to understand that he had found Jesus. With the smooth tongue he had, and the brawn, and the active help of said Jesus he had managed to lay aside a nest egg, a little something to ward off the horrors of old age. He was the only man I ever met in that period who had not taken out life insurance. He maintained that God would look after those who were left behind just as He had looked after him, George Sandusky. He had no fear of the world collapsing upon his decease. God had taken care of everybody and everything up to dateno reason to suppose He would fall down on the job after George Sandusky’s death. When one day George retired it was difficult to find a man to replace him. There was no one oily or unctuous enough to fill the bill. No one who could bow and scrape like George. The old man always had a great affection for George. He used to try to persuade him to take a