THE SEVENTY-FOURTH PAGE

My years in the retail business have been valuable because I still have many friends along Fifth Avenue who remain in trade. From time to time they have come in handy.

For example, Bloomingdale’s carries a certain French men’s shirt. It costs a hundred bucks and comes in twenty-four colors known only to the French palette. It is a shirt much favored and collected by our friend, the art director. And everybody knows it, because it is almost the only kind of shirt he is to be seen wearing.

If one has a friend in the men’s clothing department, it is possible to purchase a shirt (at the friend’s discount, natch) and have it removed from the store with its anti-theft button intact, unscanned, and stapled to the sleeve.

It is possible to have the package sent to the director’s office. The unknown sender, whose card is no doubt misplaced, has made a mistake or two. The director already has a shirt of that hue, as I very well know. It is the couleur of cirrhotic liver, and is no doubt dyed to match the art director’s organ. It is, flatteringly, a size too small.

Can we see the director smiling benignly at the lapse in the donor’s perception of his girth? Can we hear the alarum merrily ring as the hapless shopper is turned into a shoplifter when he enters the revolving doors of the emporium for the exchange of his stolen merchandise? Yes, and so we did.