tween a laugh and a
snort. "No: nor in Hoboken!" he retorted. "Listen, 'bo," he added, after
a moment's thought. "You got to have a smooth shell in Nuh Yawk. The
human eye only sees the surface. Get me? And it judges by the surface."
He smoothed his hands down his dapper trunk with ineffable complacency.
"Thirty-eight dollars, this. Bernholz Brothers, around on Broadway. Look
it over. That's a cut!"

"Is that how they're making them in the East?" doubtfully asked the
neophyte, reflecting that the pinched-in snugness of the coat, and the
flare effect of the skirts, while unquestionably more impressive than
his own box-like garb, still lacked something of the quiet distinction
which he recalled in the clothes of Herbert Cressey. The thought of that
willing messenger set him to groping for another sartorial name. He
hardly heard Wickert say proudly:

"If Bernholz's makes 'em that way, you can bet it's up to the
split-second of date, and _maybe_ they beat the pistol by a jump. I
bluffed for a raise of five dollars, on the strength of this outfit, and
got it off the bat. There's the suit paid for in two months and a pair
of shoes over." He thrust out a leg, from below the sharp-pressed
trouser-line of which protruded a boot trimmed in a sort of bizarre
fretwork. "Like me to take you around to Bernholz's?"

Banneker shook his head. The name for which he sought had come to him.
"Did you ever hear of Mertoun, somewhere on Fifth Avenue?"

"Yes. And I've seen Central Park and the Statue of Liberty," railed the
other. "Thinkin' of patternizing Mertoun, was you?"

"Yes, I'd like to."

"Like to! There's a party at the Astorbilt's to-morrow night; you'd
_like_ to go to that, wouldn't you? Fat chance!" said the disdainful and
seasoned cit. "D'you know what Mertoun would do to you? Set you back a
hundred simoleons soon as look at you. And at that you got to have a
letter of introduction like gettin' in to see the President of the
United States or John D. Rockefeller. Come off, my boy! Bernholz's 'll
fix you just as good, all but the label. Better come around to-morrow."

"Much obliged, but I'm not buying yet. Where would you say a fellow
would have a chance to see the best-dressed men?"

Young Mr. Wickert looked at once self-conscious and a trifle miffed, for
in his own set he was regarded as quite the mould of fashion. "Oh, well,
if you want to pipe off the guys that _think_ they're the whole thing,
walk up the Avenue and wat