“My!” exclaimed Gideon, forcefully.

“Dear me!” exclaimed Harvey D.

“Shucks!” exclaimed Sharon.

“But the boy is goaded to desperation!” protested Harvey D.

“Listen!” urged Sharon.  “Remember what his own father said!  He’s only half goaded.  The other half is showing off—­to himself and us.  That man knew his own flesh and blood.  And listen again!  You sit tight if you want to get him back to reason!”

“Brother, I think you’re right,” said Gideon.

“Dear me!” said Harvey D. He straightened an etched cathedral, and then with a brush from the hearth swept cigar ashes deeper into the rug about the chair of Sharon.  “Dear me!” he sighed again.

* * * * *

Early the following morning Merle Whipple halted before the show window of Newbern’s chief establishment purveying ready-made clothing for men.  He was about to undergo a novel experience and one that would have profoundly shocked his New York tailors.  There were suits in the window, fitted to forms with glovelike accuracy.  He studied these disapprovingly, then entered the shop.

“I want,” he told the salesman, “something in a rough, coarse, common-looking suit—­something such as a day labourer might wear.”

The salesman was momentarily puzzled, yet seemed to see light.

“Yes, sir—­right this way, sir,” and he led his customer back between the lines of tables piled high with garments.  He halted and spanned the chest of the customer with a tape measure.  From halfway down a stack of coats he pulled one of the proper size.

“Here’s a snappy thing, sir, fitted in at the back—­belted—­cuffs on the trousers, neat check——­”

But the customer waved it aside impatiently.

“No, no!  I want something common—­coarse cloth, roughly made, no style; it mustn’t fit too well.”

The salesman deliberated sympathetically.

“Ah, I see—­masquerade, sir?”

The customer again manifested impatience.

“No, no!  A suit such as a day labourer might wear—­a factory worker, one of the poorer class.”

The salesman heightened his manifestation of sympathy.

“Well, sir”—­he deliberated, tapping his brow with a pencil, scanning the long line of garments—­“I’m afraid we’re not stocked with what you wish.  Best go to a costumer, sir, and rent one for the night perhaps.”

The customer firmly pushed back a pendent lock of hair and became impressive.

“I tell you it is not for a masquerade or any foolishness of that sort.  I wish a plain, roughly made, common-looking suit of clothes, not too well fitting—­the sort of things working people wear, don’t you understand?”