ed
dress suit. He seemed very cheerful.

"Vell, fallers," says he, "das leetle Spencer gal ban all rite. She say
she go by me to das party. Ve ban goin' stylish tu, Aye bet yu." Then
he saw Frankling and went over to him with his hand out. "Don't yu care,
Master Frankling," he said, with one of his transcontinental smiles.
"Aye tak yust sum good care by her lak Aye ban her steddy faller." Phew!

* * * * *

Ole took Miss Spencer to the party. There isn't a bit of doubt but that
he took her in style. He put more care and exertion into the job than
any of the rest of us and he got more impressive results. Ole has his
ideas about dress. Ordinarily he wore one of those canned suits that you
buy in the coat-and-pants emporiums, giving your age and waist measure
in order to get a perfect fit. He wore a celluloid collar with it and a
necktie that must have been an heirloom in the family; and he wore a
straw hat most of the year. He wore each one till it blew away and then
got another. This rig was good enough for Ole in ordinary little social
affairs, but when it came to dances and receptions he blossomed out in
evening clothes. He had made a bargain with a second-hand clothes-man
downtown--split his wood all winter for the use of a dress suit that had
lost its position in a prominent family and was going downhill fast. You
know how the tailors work the dress suit racket. They can't exactly
change the style of a suit--it's got to be open-faced and have
tails--but they work in some little improvement like a braid on or off,
or an extra buttonhole, or a flare in the vest each year; so that a
really bang-up-to-date chap would blush all over if he had to wear a
last year's model. I notice the automobile makers are doing the same
stunt. They can't improve their cars any more, so they put four doors on
one year, cut 'em in two the next and take them off the year after.

This hasn't anything to do with Ole except that that dress suit of his
was behind the times one hundred and two counts. It had been a fat man's
suit in the first place. It fitted him magnificently at the shoulders.
He and the suit began to leave each other from that point down. At the
waist it looked like a deflated balloon. The top of the trousers fitted
him about as snugly as a round manhole in the street. The legs flapped
like the mainsail of a catboat that's coming about. They ended some time
before his own legs did and there was