I lead him into my office and tell him to take a seat.

To get the ball rolling, I ask him what he does for a living and he explains he is a men’s clothing salesman for Bando’s downtown.

“Each guy’s got to turn a minimum of a hundred fifty thousand a year, or we’re a number on last year’s spreadsheet,” he confides.

“You wouldn’t believe the pressure to sell neckties to people who have a couple of dozen hanging in their closet already. The markup is terrific. We sell three-hundred-dollar suits that cost us maybe sixty bucks. If we can’t move ‘em, we’ll knock off a hundred and then another hundred and still make money. If it’s a good location, a store can clean up.”

I notice a thread unraveling on the right arm of the sleeve of the russet blazer I got on sale this past spring at Bando’s. Damn. I thought I was stealing it, and they probably still made fifty bucks. If this guy was injured, it wasn’t his mouth. He’s a talker.

“You said that you thought you had a products liability case,” I remind him, thinking he should have been a lawyer. He looks much slicker than the attorneys on our floor, but that isn’t difficult to do, as Julia reminds us on a weekly basis.

“I think I do,” Blessing says, frowning.

“In my business image is everything. You’ve got to look sharp if you want to sell in the most expensive stores where they can really jack up the profit margin. If the customer is going to lay out good money for a pair of pants and a matching jacket, you can imagine he doesn’t want to give his money to a guy who looks like a bum off the street.”

I put my left arm over the offending thread.

“Sure,” I say. I went in Bando’s once and was so horrified by the price of just the ties I had heartburn for a week.

“It’d be like going to Alouette’s and being served by a woman in curlers with grease stains down the front of her dress.”