ed--well, one simply couldn't go looking like a fright,
and that was all there was to it. His father never thought to argue
such a question. Women folks had to have clothes, and so he accepted
the situation with the philosophy born of bowing gracefully to the
inevitable. But Starratt himself occasionally voiced a protest.

"Nothing to wear?" he would echo, incredulously. "Why, how about that
pink dress? That hasn't worn out yet."

"No, that's just it! It simply won't! I'm sick and tired of putting it
on. Everybody knows it down to the last hook and eye... Oh, well, I'll
stay home. It isn't a matter of life and death. I've given things up
before."

When a woman took that tone of martyrdom there really was nothing to
do but acknowledge defeat. Other men were able to provide frocks for
their wives and he supposed he ought to be willing to do the same
thing. There was an element of stung pride in his surrender. He had
the ingrained Californian's distaste for admitting, even to himself,
that there was anything he could not afford. And in the end it was
this feeling rising above the surface of his irritation which made him
a bit ashamed of his attitude toward Helen's dinner party. After all,
it would be the same a thousand years from now. A man couldn't have
his cake and eat it, and a man like Brauer must live a dull sort of
life. What could be the use of saving money if one forgot how to spend
it in the drab process? As a matter of fact, old Wetherbee wouldn't
gobble him. He'd grunt or grumble or even rave a bit, but in the end
he would yield up the money. He always did. And suddenly, while his
courage had been so adroitly screwed to the sticking point, he went
over to old Wetherbee's desk without further ado.

The cashier was absorbed in adding several columns of figures and he
let Starratt wait. This was not a reassuring sign. Finally, when he
condescended to acknowledge the younger man's presence he did it with
the merest uplift of the eyebrows. Starratt decided at once against
pleasantries. Instead, he matched Wetherbee's quizzical pantomime by
throwing the carefully written IOU tag down on the desk.

Wetherbee tossed the tag aside. "You got twenty-five dollars a couple
of days ago!" he bawled out suddenly.

Starratt was surprised into silence. Old Wetherbee was sometimes given
to half-audible and impersonal grumblings, but this was the first time
he had ever gone so far as to voice a specific objection to an appea