[All this time TIPPY has been wiping dog with one towel after another.  He now gets up and leads dog to yard.]

TIPPY.  Now I must hang Itzy out to dry.

MARTIN.  God, haven’t you dried that cur enough?

TIPPY.  Him must be ventilated so him will smell sweet.  Him’s mama rubs her nose in him and her is very particular. [He goes out with dog.  MARTIN begins picking up the strewn array of used towels, TIPPY comes back.] Thanks, old man. [Takes the towels.] Want to dump the tub for me? [MARTIN carries tub into kitchen, TIPPY continues cleaning up.  TED enters with KATE. She is richly dressed and has the mink coat, TED has on a complete new outfit:  suit, hat shoes, topcoat.  Everything.  The coat is gray; suit brown; hat gray.  And there is a price tag on tail of overcoat. TIPPY stares in astonishment.] Do my eyes deceive me?

KATE.  Hello, flea-killer.—­How do you like it?

TIPPY.  I must have slept a few years.

[TED removes coat and lays it on table with hat.]

KATE.  Slept?

TIPPY.  It looks to me like the Republican Party is back in power.

[MARTIN re-enters.  He stops in astonishment.]

MARTIN.  Hello.

KATE.  Hello, Communist. [Indicates TED.] Does seeing Ted decently dressed make you see red?

MARTIN. [Surveying TED’S clothes.] No, indeed.  The true Communist loves beauty and prosperity.  His distinction is that he insists on both for everybody.

KATE.  Well, I know you are prospering.  I saw your drawing in the New Yorker.

MARTIN.  I let them have it at half price just to get it where you would see it.

TIPPY. [Confidentially to KATE.] Half price in the New Yorker would be triple price in the New Masses. But selling to the New Yorker is the latest orders from the Comintern.  It’s the new plan for boring from within.

KATE. [Impressed.] Oh!  Is it?

TED. [To MARTIN, who is still surveying him.] Does it fit all right?

MARTIN.  Perfectly.

KATE. [Indicating TED.] Honest, Tippy, what do you think of it?

TIPPY.  What should I think?  What would anybody think?

KATE.  He looks nice, doesn’t he?

TED. [Trying to seem nonchalant, although he is obviously trying to justify himself.] I dropped by to remind Kate about the party.

KATE.  And I inveigled him into a shop.  Isn’t it worth it? 
Transforms him.  Ted wears clothes so well.

TIPPY.  Agreed.  The man makes the clothes.  Martin in that outfit would look like an Oklahoma Indian who’d just struck oil.

KATE.  Ted hasn’t any business to look shabby.  It’s all right for
Martin, but Ted just looks pathetic.

MARTIN.  The only reason I don’t wear good clothes is because I spill soup on them.