e good clothes. He squeezed his pocketbook and
read and reread the painted words in their painted circles:

"O'coat, $40, no more; Coat, $20, no more; Pants, $5, no more; Hat, $3,
no more."

His mind was adding twenty, five, and three. The total was
twenty-eight. He could get along without an overcoat, though in San
Francisco, even in summer, an overcoat is comfortable at night. Should
he or should he not? His rusty old clothes were torturing him.
Twenty-eight dollars! And perhaps only four or five more for extras--a
tie, collars, suspenders, and--oh, yes! shoes. He had forgotten the
shoes. His were brogans. He must have shoes, too. Perhaps five for
shoes. He had barely sixty-seven dollars. Should he? Was it foolish,
or----

Reflected in the show window he saw a drab automobile flash behind him.
At the wheel he saw, erect, forceful, jaunty, and well-dressed, with a
black cigar gripped in his teeth, the man who had snatched at Lucy's
hand. Clinching his pocketbook, Hiram entered the store.

A half hour later he came out, poorer by some thirty-eight dollars, but
rich in the self-esteem which the bright, stiff garments gave him.

He left his bundle in his stall at the lodging house, criticized
himself before the cracked mirror in the hall, and went down on the
street. He bought three five-cent cigars and lighted one. He gripped
it in his teeth and let it protrude from the left-hand corner of his
mouth. Then he started for the restaurant.

Long before he reached it panic was upon him. He had absolutely no
pretext on which to enter. It was then only ten-thirty, and he had
breakfasted at nine. To enter boldly and begin a conversation with
Lucy--which he had all along boastfully promised himself he would
do--he now knew to be the last thing on earth he would dare.

Besides, though the garments he wore were new and bright and stiff,
those two brief glimpses of his rival's clothes now tardily showed him
that there was a difference. His coat, for instance, seemed a bit
angular--there seemed to be corners he had not noticed in the store.
It did not snuggle down to his neck and shoulders just right. Hiram
thought that perhaps the linen collar was a trifle too large.

Thus criticizing, and walking slower and slower, he neared the
restaurant. Now it was impossible to take another step without coming
abreast of it. He stopped and looked in a jeweler's window next door.

He stood there fifteen minutes.