Gimbel Growth

To look for something in a department store is a task the grue- someness of. which brings about in normal people one of two reac- tions. Some long to return next day with a dynamiting crew and a trench mortar to raze to the ground and destroy utterly the madhouse of raucous voices, fetid air, stale perfumes; the shouldering, stupid, perspiring women who just want to know "how much this is"; clerks who indicate, by a sad shake of the head, that the English language is a closed book to them. Other customers, less bloody-minded, merely...