B682 <=> B684 [BTG XXXVII France, p. 683]

“’That firm not only fills its pockets through the stupidities of its compatriots, but into the bargain it unfortunately adds much of its own “meanness.”

“’And they concoct this “melange” in the following way: the branch of the firm here, advertising itself well by American methods, is already widely known to my compatriots, and therefore, many of them, owing to always their same “vanity” and to other weaknesses, proper by the way to those beings of whom my compatriots mostly consist, always order their so-called fashionable dresses from this branch here, and the branch here sends to them “from the capital of the world” “real French models.”

“’All this is done “quite honorably,” according to all contemporary commercial rules on the basis of “triple-entry bookkeeping” and “Shachermacher-accounting.”

“’As regards, so to say, the “intimate side of the business” of this American “solid firm” of ours, founded by various American “sharks,” it is just here that these “sharks” skin everyone, and this only for the benefit of their own bottomless pockets.

“’Well, when this Paris branch receives a mail order direct from its American clients, this same mail order is then sent d.i.r.e.c.t.l.y. to the German branch, and there, in Germany, where materials and labor are much cheaper than here in Paris, the branch there s.l.o.w.l.y. and l.e.i.s.u.r.e.l.y. carries out this American “mail order” according to all the codes of “Paris fashions,” whereupon it very calmly sticks on to its production a “Paris label” and, again, d.i.r.e.c.t.l.y . . . forwards it by steamer via Hamburg to its New York branch, from which the client receives her order, happy and proud that tomorrow she will wear “not just anything” but a real “Paris dress,” sewed in Paris itself, after the “latest Paris fashions.”