The coat did bag a little, and it was too long in the sleeves, but as

Milt studied himself in his room--by placing his small melancholy mirror

on the bureau, then on a chair, then on the floor, finally, to get a

complete view, clear out in the hall--he admitted with stirring delight

that he looked "pretty fair in the bloomin' outfit." His clear face, his

shining hair, his straight shoulders, seemed to go with the costume.

He wriggled into his top-coat and marched out of his room,

theater-bound, with the well-fed satisfaction of a man who is certain

that no one is giggling, "Look at the hand-me-downs." His pumps did

alternately pinch his toes and rub his heels; the trousers cramped his

waist; and he suspected that his tie had gone wandering. But he

swaggered to the trolley, and sat as one rich and famous and very kind

to the Common People, till---Another man in evening clothes got on the car, and Milt saw that he wore

a silk hat, and a white knitted scarf; that he took out and examined a

pair of white kid gloves.

He'd forgotten the hat! He was wearing his gray felt. He could risk the

gloves, but the hat--the "stovepipe"--and the chart had said to wear

one--he was ruined---He turned up the collar of his top-coat to conceal his white tie, tried

to hide each of his feet behind the other to cover up his pumps; sought

to change his expression from that of a superior person in evening

clothes to that of a decent fellow in honest Regular Clothes. Had the

conductor or any of the passengers realized that he was a dub in a

dress-suit without the hat?

Once he thought that the real person in real evening clothes was looking

at him. He turned his head and bore the probable insult in weak misery.

Too feeble for anything but thick suffering he was dragged on toward the

theater, the opera, people in silk hats--toward Jeff Saxton and

exposure.

But his success in bullying the tailor had taught him that dressing

wasn't really a hidden lore to be known only by initiates; that some day

he too might understand the black and white magic of clothes. His

bruised self-consciousness healed. "I'll do--something," he determined.

He waited, vacuously.

The Gilson party was not in the lobby when he arrived. He tore off his

top-coat. He draped it over his felt hat, so that no one could be sure

what sort of hat it shamefully concealed. That unveiling did expose him

to the stare of everybody waiting in the lobby. He was convinced that

the entire ticket-buying cue was glumly resenting him. Peeping down at

the unusual white glare of his shirt-front, he felt naked and

indecent.... "Nice kind o' vest. Must make 'em out of old piqué

collars."




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