Chapter 107 Chapter 107

Mr. Sampson, the purchaser, grew fond of Philip.The gentleman was full of energy and drive, and the girls in the shop said they wouldn't be surprised if he married a wealthy customer.He lived in the suburbs, but he often gave the shop assistants the impression that he also wore evening dress in the office.Sometimes the clerks on the cleaning shift noticed that he had come to work in evening coat, too, and they winked gravely at each other as he went into the office to change into his frock coat.On such occasions Mr. Sampson would sneak out of the shop to have a quick breakfast, and rub his hands and wink at Philip as he went upstairs to his office.

"Oh!" he said with emotion, "what a night! what a night!" He told Philip that he was the only gentleman in the shop, and that he and Philip were the only ones who understood the true meaning of life.As soon as he finished speaking, he changed his face quickly, called Philip called Mr. Carey instead of "dude", and then put on a style befitting the position of stock clerk, and pushed Philip to the position of customer. Give orders to him from the post of usher. Lane-Sedley receives fashion samples from Paris once a week, and changes these fashion styles slightly to meet the needs of their customers.Their customers are unusual. Most of them are women workers in smaller industrial towns. Find a decent clothing company.In addition, there are a large number of Kun Ling in the vaudeville theater. It seems a bit out of place for the company to have such a chief consultant.And this was the first connection Sampson had made, and he was quite complacent about it.The cast began by making costumes exclusively at Lane's, but Mr. Sampson gradually induced many of them to make other costumes in the shop as well.

"The clothes are as good as Paquin's for half the price," he said. Mr. Sampson smiled and spoke seductively, and this attitude was quite pleasing to such customers. No wonder they all said: "What's the point of throwing money elsewhere when you can buy a coat or dress at Lane's that everyone knows came from Paris?" Mr. Sampson was proud of the friendships he had formed with the public favourites, for whom he had made gowns.At two o'clock one Sunday afternoon he accompanied Miss Victoria Fogg to her pretty villa on the Hill of Tours, and dined with her.After he came back, he narrated it eloquently, making all the shop assistants feel happy.He said: "She had on a dark blue blouse that we had sewn, and I dare say she had no idea it was in our store, so I had to tell her myself that if I hadn't designed the blouse If so, it must have been designed by Paquin." Philip had never paid attention to women's clothing, but after a while, he gradually became interested in women's clothing from a technical point of view. Somewhat funny.He had a good eye for color, and in that he was well trained, and no one else in the shop could match him.Besides, when he was studying painting in Paris, he also learned something about the beauty of lines, which he has never forgotten.Mr. Sampson was a man of ignorance, but with some self-knowledge, and an adroitness for taking advice from others.Every time he designed a new style, he had to solicit the opinions of the shop assistants without paying attention, and he was very good at hearing, and soon found Philip's criticism and suggestions to be valuable.But he is jealous of others by nature, and he is never willing to accept other people's opinions.After he had modified a certain design on Philip's suggestion, he always said:

"Well, I finally modified the design according to my idea." One day, five months after Philip had been in the shop, Miss Alice Antonia came to see Mr. Sampson.The lady was famous for her manners which were both dignified and witty.She was a stocky woman with flaxen hair, a broad, painted face, and a harsh voice when she spoke.She had the brisk air of a comedian who was used to flirting with the footmen of the provincial vaudeville theater.She is about to perform a new piece of music and wants Mr. Sampson to design a new costume for her. "I want to make a costume that will make people stare," she said to Mr. Sampson. "You know, I don't want the old-fashioned costumes. I want different costumes."

Mr. Sampson was pleasant.He said that the costumes she likes can definitely be made in the store, and showed her a few costume designs. "I know that none of these patterns are to your liking, but I just wanted to show you the general range suggested to you." "Oh, no, that's not what I have in mind at all," said Miss Alice Antony, after glancing impatiently at the design. It looked like a punch had been punched on the jaw, making his teeth rattle." "Yes, I understand what you mean, Miss Anthony Chiu," said the stocker, with a kind smile on his face, but his eyes showed a look of bewilderment.

"I figured, at the end of the day, I'd have to go to Paris and do it." "Oh, Miss Antonia, I think we will please you. We can do here as well as you can do costumes in Paris." After Miss Antony walked out of the clothing department, Mr. Sampson felt a little troubled and went to Mrs. Hodges to discuss it. "She's a real eccentric," said Mrs. Hodges. "Where are you, Alice?" murmured the clerk irritably, thinking he had a slight edge over Miss Alice Antonyjaw. In his mind, vaudeville costumes were nothing more than short skirts of various kinds, with lace rolled and little glittering sequins hanging from them.But Miss Anthony Ji's attitude on this issue is unambiguous.

"Oops! Chew!" she screamed. She cursed in a tone of abhorrence for anything mediocre, without even expressing her distaste for the little metal discs.Mr. Sampson rummaged and came up with an idea or two, but Mrs. Hodges told him flat out that he hadn't hit any of them.It was Mrs. Hodges who finally made this suggestion to Philip: "Phil, can you draw? Why don't you try it and see what you can draw?" Philip bought a box of cheap watercolor paints.In the evening, the sixteen-year-old mischievous Bell kept arranging the stamps while whistling continuously, blowing three tunes in a row.In the meantime Philip had worked out several costume designs.He still remembers the styles of some theater costumes he saw in Paris back then, and he took one of the styles as a blueprint, modified it slightly, and painted it in a rich and strange color, and the effect was quite good.He was overjoyed and showed it to Mrs Hodges the next morning.The lady seemed stunned, and took it to the stocker.

"Needless to say," said Mr. Sampson, "the design is quite unique." The design baffled him at once, but his trained eyes saw at a glance that it would be attractive to sew clothes from this design.In order to save his own face.Son, he began to propose some changes again.Mrs. Hodges, however, was a little perplexed; indeed, she suggested that he take the design intact to Miss Antonie. "That's all right, maybe she will like this style." "It's more than that," Sampson said, looking at the topless costume design in front of him. "He can draw, can't he? No wonder he keeps it a secret."

When Miss Antonia was announced to be in the clothing department, Mr. Sampson placed the design prominently on his desk so that Miss Antonia could see it as soon as she stepped into the office.She really rushed to the design pattern immediately. "What is this?" she exclaimed. "Why can't you make me a costume like this?" "That's what we did for you," Sampson said slowly. "Do you like it?" "Don't tell me how much you like it!" said she; "pass me half a pint of mineral water, with a drop of gin in it." "Oh, you see, you don't have to go to Paris. You just say what you want, and we've got it here."

The costumes were sent to be made immediately, and Philip's heart was pounding with satisfaction when he saw the finished costumes.The buyer and Mrs. Hodges gave both of them the credit, but Philip didn't care.He followed the two of them to the Tivoli Variety to see Miss Antony the Dumb try on, and his heart was filled with joy.In answer to Mrs. Hodges' question, he told her about his learning to paint, and said that he was afraid that the shop assistants who lived with him would think he was trying to put on airs, so he had been careful not to reveal anything about his previous life. experience.Mrs. Hodges parroted the news to the stocker.The purchaser said nothing to Philip about this, but gradually he treated him differently, and soon got him to make several designs for two country customers, which were all well received.From then on, Mr. Sampson said in front of his customers, "You know, there is a bright young man who has studied painting in Paris" to assist him in his work.Before long Philip was in his shirt-sleeves, and sat behind a screen from morning to night, making patterns for dresses.Sometimes he was so busy that he had to have lunch with some "latecomers" at three o'clock in the afternoon.He liked that, because there were not many of them, and each of them was too tired to talk.The food is also a little better, it's all leftovers from the purchasers.

Philip's promotion from the shop's customer attendant to the costume designer caused a strong reaction in the costume department.He realized that he had become the object of envy.Harris--the grotesque-headed clerk--was the first person Philip met in the store and liked Philip very much.He couldn't hide his jealousy either. "All the luck in the world goes to someone," Harris murmured to Philip, "and before long you'll be a stocker yourself, and we'll all have to call you Mr. ." He told Philip that he ought to ask for an increase because, despite the complicated work he was doing, he was not paid a penny more than the six shillings a week he had been getting to begin with.But going to the manager to ask for a raise is tricky business.The manager has a sarcastic way of dealing with this type of applicant for a raise. "You think you deserve more, don't you? How much do you think you deserve? Uh?" At this point the applicant, in a panic, will say that he thinks he should add two shillings a week more. "Oh, well, you think you deserve this much, and you can get this much," he paused, sometimes looking at people with a grim look, "and at the same time, you can also get a letter of dismissal ." At this time, it is useless to withdraw the request for a salary increase, you must pack up and leave.The manager's point of view is that disgruntled shop assistants are not going to do a good job, and if they don't deserve a raise, it's better to just let them go.As a result, unless it was someone who wanted to leave, none of the others dared to come forward and ask for a raise.Philip hesitated.Everyone in his room said that the purchaser couldn't do without him, and he was skeptical about it.These mates were honest people, but their sense of humor was so primitive that it would have been very amusing to them if he had been fired for asking for a raise at their instigation.He couldn't forget the bitterness he had tasted when he was looking for a job, and he didn't want to taste it again.He knew that there was little chance of getting a job as a pattern designer elsewhere.There are hundreds of people around who can draw as well as him.But he was in urgent need of money, and his old clothes were worn out, and he stood on the thick carpet all day long, his soles were bare, and his socks and boots were rotten.One morning, on his way upstairs after dinner in the basement restaurant, he walked through the hallway that led to the manager's office.At this moment he almost persuaded himself to take the risky step.He saw a line of men in front of the office who had been lured by job advertisements to interview the manager.There were about a hundred men, and whoever was hired would be given the same treatment as Philip and six shillings a week.He saw that some of them were casting envious glances at him because he had been hired.That look made him shudder.He dared not take the risk.