as
sulky as the eyes of a dog in August dust.

"Now that--you can't beat that, if you vant class, and it'll fit you
like a glove. Oh, that's an ellllegant garment!"

Shaking himself out of the spell of those contemptuous eyes Milt opened
his brochure, studied the chart, and in a footnote found, "Never wear
velvet collars or cuffs with evening coat."

"Nope. Nix on the velvet," he remarked.

Then the little man went mad and ran around in circles. He flung the
ellllegant garment on the table. He flapped his arms, and wailed, "What
do you vant? What do you vannnnt? That's a hundred-and-fifty-dollar
dress-suit! That belonged to one of the richest men in the city. He sold
it to me because he was going to Japan."

"Well, you can send it to Japan after him. I want something decent. Have
you got it--or shall I go some place else?"

The tailor instantly became affectionate. "How about a nice Tuxedo?" he
coaxed.

"Nope. It says here--let me see--oh yes, here it is--it says here in the
book that for the theater-with-ladies, should not wear 'dinner-coat or
so-called Tuxedo, but----'"

"Oh, dem fellows what writes books they don't know nothing. Absolute!
They make it up."

"Huh! Well, I guess I'll take my chance on them. The factory knows the
ignition better 'n any repair-man."

"Vell say, you're a hard fellow to please. I'll give you one of my
reserve stock, but you got to leave me ten dollars deposit instead of
five."

Mr. Silberfarb quite cheerfully unlocked a glass case behind the racked
and ghostly dead; he brought out a suit that seemed to Milt almost
decent. And it almost fitted when, after changing clothes in a broiling,
boiling, reeking, gasoline-pulsing hole behind the racks, he examined it
before a pier-glass. But he caught the tailor assisting the fit by
bunching up a roll of cloth at the shoulder. Again Milt snapped, and
again the tailor suffered and died, and to a doubting heathen world
maintained the true gospel of "What do you vannnnt? It ain't stylish to
have the dress-suit too tight! All the gents is wearing 'em loose and
graceful." But in the end, after Milt had gone as far as the door, Mr.
Silberfarb admitted that one dress-coat wouldn't always fit all persons
without some alterations.

The coat did bag a little, and it was too long in the sleeves, but as
Milt studied himself in his room--by placing his small melancholy mirror
on the bureau, then on a chair, then on the floor, finally, to get a
c