mean, how poor are we now?"

"How poor are _we_?"

"Sure--Tweet, Hooker & Co. pays the bills."

"I guess I c'n do what I want to with my own money, can't I?"

"Sure--sure! Don't get your shirt off. I don't mean to insinuate that
you're not capable o' judiciously handlin' the firm's money. I just
want you to read me the balance sheet."

"Well, then, I spent thirty-eight dollars, and I've got twenty-nine
dollars left."

"Stand up."

Hiram did so.

"Turn round."

Hiram wheeled slowly.

Tweet studied him from every angle, and as Hiram turned he noted the
twinkles which came and went in his slate-blue eyes. Without another
word Tweet left him standing there, went back and sat down, and hid his
face behind his paper.

Hiram waited a minute, then slowly sank to the edge of his chair.
After a little he asked pleadingly:

"Ain't they all right?"

Tweet's paper trembled. A bit of this, then Tweet lowered it and
presented a countenance which seemed never to have known a smile.

"Hiram," he remarked, "I don't wanta hurt your feelin's, but the part
o' true friendship calls for me to use the surgeon's knife. Hiram, I
wouldn't wear that outfit to a funeral. D'ye get me?"

Hiram's blue eyes blazed. "Yes, I get you," he began coldly, then
curbed a threatening outburst. "I know they're not the best in the
land," he concluded sensibly, "but I feel better in 'em."

"There's somethin' in that," Tweet propounded sagely. "There's a whole
lot in gettin' that feel. Good clothes kinda brace a fella up and give
him the nerve to buck on in the big game. Hiram, if your new outfit
gives you the _feel_, it's the goods. When you get next a little it'll
cost you more money to get that feel outa clothes. After all, now,
when that tin-roof look wears off of 'em you won't appear so
whittled-out in that suit. But now, layin' all jokes aside, are they
just the thing for drivin' old Jack and Ned on the railroad grade?
And didn't this sudden lavishness kinda set the company back on its
haunches?"

Hiram looked out the window. "Did you see the fire?" he asked absently.

"Yes--walked round the block to get outa the crowd. But----"

"I just had to kinda spruce up a bit, Mr. Tweet. I felt so
kinda--well, kinda countrified and--and lost, you might say."

"What's the fire got to do with that? And call me Playmate, too."

"Nothin', I suppose."

"Right across from the restaurant wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"M'm-m--I'd 'a'