d Ovid, "ma makes her own."

Scattergood nodded.

"Still does sewin' for other folks?"

"Ma enjoys it," said Ovid, defensively. "Says it passes the time."

"Passes consid'able of it, don't it? Passes the time right up till she
gits into bed?"

"Ma's industrious."

"It's a handsome rig-out," said Scattergood. "Credit to you; credit to
Coldriver; credit to the bank."

Ovid glanced down at his legs to admire them.

"Been spendin' Saturday nights and Sundays out of town for a spell,
hain't you? Seems like I hain't seen you around."

"Been takin' the 'three-o'clock' down the line," said Ovid, complacently.

"Girl?" said Scattergood--one might have noticed that it was hopefully.

"Naw.... Fellers. We go to the opery Saturday nights and kind of amuse
ourselves Sundays."

"Um!... G'-by, Ovid."

"Good-by, Mr. Baines."

Coldriver had seen tailor-made clothing before, worn by drummers and
visitors, but it is doubtful if it had ever really experienced one
personally adorning one of its own citizens. A few years before it had
been currently reported that Jed Lewis was about to have such a suit to
be married in, but it turned out that the major part of the sum to be
devoted to that purpose actually went as the first payment on a parlor
organ and that Lafe Atwell purveyed the wedding garment. This denouement
had created a breath of dissatisfaction with Jed, and there were those
who argued that organs were more wasteful than clothes, because you
could go to church of a Sunday, drop a dime in the collection plate, and
hear all the organ music a body needed to hear.

So now Scattergood regarded Ovid speculatively through the window,
setting on opposite mental columns Ovid's salary of nine hundred dollars
a year and the probable total cost of tailor-made clothes and weekly
trips down the line on the "three-o'clock."

Scattergood was interested in every man, woman, and child in Coldriver.
Their business was his business. But just now he owned an especial
concern for Ovid, because he, and he alone, had placed the boy in the
bank after Ovid's graduation from high school--and had watched him, with
some pleasure, as he progressed steadily and methodically to a position
which Coldriver regarded as one of the finest it was possible for a
young man to hold. To be assistant cashier of the Coldriver Savings
Bank was to have achieved both social and business success.

Scattergood liked Ovid, had confidence in the boy, and even s