half-closed eyes.
He was puzzled. What curious change had been wrought in this
exponent--this almost symbol--of thrift that she should actually
encourage him in the pursuit of the ruinous course into which he'd been
thrust by the wonderful dress suit! He said nothing, but he jotted
down in his little book:--

_Dress-Suit Account_

_Debit_ _Credit_

To operating expenses:
$1.50 a week.

The trip into town in the Pullman each day was a social event with
Skinner. He looked forward to it and what he learned was each night a
subject of gossip at the dinner table.

"It's a regular 'joy ride' and I'm getting all kinds of good out of
it," said he enthusiastically one evening. "By Jove, clothes are a
good commercial proposition."

"Don't talk about the commercial side of it, Dearie. Tell me about the
'gold bugs.'"

"They're wonderful fellows," said Skinner, with the air of a man who
had always been accustomed to traveling with such people and was now
unbending to confide familiar items of special interest to some
unsophisticated listener. "You'd find them fascinating."

"They 're just like other men, are n't they?"

Skinner rather pitied her inexperience. "No, they're not. They're
just like great, big boys. The most natural talkers in the
world--simple, direct, clear."

"Do you ever talk?"

This question brought Skinner back to earth again. He was just Dearie
now.

"_Do_ I? Say, Honey, I've been isolated in that cage of mine so long
that I thought I'd forgotten how to talk. But you'd be surprised to
hear me--right in with the rest of them!"

"But you can't talk big things, Dearie, like them. You don't _know_
big things."

"Bless you, they don't talk big things. They tell anecdotes. And they
talk about the time when they were boys--and their early struggles.
Every darned one of them came from a farm or a blacksmith shop. They
all love to tell how often their fathers licked 'em. And they gossip
about their old friends and things. The ride in is not business,
Honey, it's social. There's one thing I've discovered in that Pullman
Club," he went on. "These fellows are n't any cleverer than many a man
in my position, but they've realized that it's just as easy to play
with blue chips as with white ones--and they've got the nerve to do it."

"I don't catch on."

"It's just as easy to play with dollars as with dimes--just as easy to