“Oh, of course, foreigners always get on!  They’re accustomed to live that way!”

Fred Starratt had not altogether accepted his mother’s philosophy that everybody lacking the grace of an Anglo-Saxon or Scotch name was a foreigner.  There were times when he was given to wonder vaguely why the gift of “getting on” had been given to “foreigners” and denied him.  Once in a while he rebelled against the implied gentility which had been wished on him.  Were rags necessary to achieve economy?  Granting the premises, in moments of rare revolt he became hospitable to any contingency that would free him from the ever-present humiliation of an empty purse.

He soon had learned that the term “rags” was a mere figure of speech, which stood for every pretense offered up as a sacrifice upon the altar of appearances.  His mother had never been a spendthrift and certainly one could not convict Helen on such a charge.  But they both had one thing in common—­they “had to have things” for almost any and every occasion.  If a trip were planned or a dancing party arranged or a tea projected—­well, one simply couldn’t go looking like a fright, and that was all there was to it.  His father never thought to argue such a question.  Women folks had to have clothes, and so he accepted the situation with the philosophy born of bowing gracefully to the inevitable.  But Starratt himself occasionally voiced a protest.

“Nothing to wear?” he would echo, incredulously.  “Why, how about that pink dress?  That hasn’t worn out yet.”

“No, that’s just it!  It simply won’t!  I’m sick and tired of putting it on.  Everybody knows it down to the last hook and eye...  Oh, well, I’ll stay home.  It isn’t a matter of life and death.  I’ve given things up before.”

When a woman took that tone of martyrdom there really was nothing to do but acknowledge defeat.  Other men were able to provide frocks for their wives and he supposed he ought to be willing to do the same thing.  There was an element of stung pride in his surrender.  He had the ingrained Californian’s distaste for admitting, even to himself, that there was anything he could not afford.  And in the end it was this feeling rising above the surface of his irritation which made him a bit ashamed of his attitude toward Helen’s dinner party.  After all, it would be the same a thousand years from now.  A man couldn’t have his cake and eat it, and a man like Brauer must live a dull sort of life.  What could be the use of saving money if one forgot how to spend it in the drab process?  As a matter of fact, old Wetherbee wouldn’t gobble him.  He’d grunt or grumble or even rave a bit, but in the end he would yield up the money.  He always did.  And suddenly, while his courage had been so adroitly screwed to the sticking point, he went over to old Wetherbee’s desk without further ado.

The cashier was absorbed in adding several columns of figures and he let Starratt wait.  This was not a reassuring sign.  Finally, when he condescended to acknowledge the younger man’s presence he did it with the merest uplift of the eyebrows.  Starratt decided at once against pleasantries.  Instead, he matched Wetherbee’s quizzical pantomime by throwing the carefully written IOU tag down on the desk.