buyers. My next move is to make a report
over the 'phone.

"Yep, I got 'em both under lock and key," says I to Marjorie. "Trouble
to pick em out? Ah, it was a pipe! Specimens like that ain't so common
anyone could get mixed if they knew what day to look for 'em. Yes, the
nephew's along, all right. His real name is Jake. Well, Hermes if you
insist. But, say, ask Miss Mildred if she wants him delivered in the
original package, or should I hire some open face clothes for him."

The decision is that Hermes must come in a dress suit, and if he ain't
got any with him Marjorie will send down one of Mr. Robert's old ones.

"Oh, I'm just dying to see him in evening clothes!" gushes Mildred over
the wire. "I know he'll be perfectly splendid!"

"Maybe," says I. "Only don't forget the collar buttons and studs for the
dress shirt."

Say, I won't dwell on the gay time I had tryin' to keep that pair out of
sight until after dinner. Honest, if I'd been drivin' the monkey cage in
a circus parade I'd felt a lot better; for every fresh gink that pipes
off that vaudeville costume of Jake's has to have his say about it. At
the hash house where I steers 'em up against a twenty-five-cent course
dinner all the girl waiters got to gigglin' like they'd never seen a
freak before.

It wouldn't have been so bad with just Uncle Jerry, for he's wearin' an
old black whipcord that would pass in the dark, and, outside the rubber
collar and the plated watch chain looped across his vest, he didn't have
the crossroads tag on him very plain; but Jake might as well have had
cowbells tied to him. Maybe I wa'n't some relieved too when we got back
to the hotel and found this outfit that the girls had scraped together
and sent down.

"Now we'll fix you up for the theater and high society, Jake," says I.
"By rights you ought to have some of that neck hemp sheared off; but I
don't dare let a barber loose at you, for fear Mildred wouldn't know you
after he got through. She raved a lot about that hair of yours, Jake."

"You go on now, Smarty!" says Jaky boy, grinnin' expansive. "Think I'm
goin' to wear duds like them?"

"You do if you appear out again with me," says I. "So peel the butternut
regalia and lemme see if I can harness you up in these."

"Hee-haw!" remarks Uncle Jerry. "Let him fix you up real harnsome,
Jake."

Maybe that's what I did; but I wouldn't want to swear to it. Anyway, I
got him into the dress shirt by main strength. That was the fi