Ovid smiled down at himself, and wagged his head.

“Don’t recall seem’ jest sich a suit in Coldriver before,” said Scattergood.  “Never bought ’em at Lafe Atwell’s, did you?”

“Got ’em in the city,” said Ovid.

“I want to know!  Come made that way, Ovid, or was they manufactured special fer you?”

“Best tailor there was,” said Ovid.

“Must ‘a’ come to quite a figger, includin’ the shirt and necktie.”

“Forty dollars for the suit,” Ovid said, proudly, “and it busted a five-dollar bill all to pieces to git the shirt and tie.”

Scattergood waggled his head admiringly.  “Must be a satisfaction,” he said, “to be able to afford sich clothes.”

Ovid looked a bit doubtful, but Scattergood’s voice was so interested, so bland, that any suspicion of irony was allayed.

“How’s your ma?” Scattergood asked.

“Pert,” answered Ovid.  “Ma’s spry.  Barrin’ a siege of neuralgy in the face off and on, ma hain’t complainin’ of nothin’.”

“Has she took to patronizin’ a city tailor, too?” Scattergood asked.

“Mostly,” said Ovid, “ma makes her own.”

Scattergood nodded.

“Still does sewin’ for other folks?”

“Ma enjoys it,” said Ovid, defensively.  “Says it passes the time.”

“Passes consid’able of it, don’t it?  Passes the time right up till she gits into bed?”

“Ma’s industrious.”

“It’s a handsome rig-out,” said Scattergood.  “Credit to you; credit to Coldriver; credit to the bank.”

Ovid glanced down at his legs to admire them.

“Been spendin’ Saturday nights and Sundays out of town for a spell, hain’t you?  Seems like I hain’t seen you around.”

“Been takin’ the ‘three-o’clock’ down the line,” said Ovid, complacently.

“Girl?” said Scattergood—­one might have noticed that it was hopefully.

“Naw....  Fellers.  We go to the opery Saturday nights and kind of amuse ourselves Sundays.”

“Um!...  G’-by, Ovid.”

“Good-by, Mr. Baines.”

Coldriver had seen tailor-made clothing before, worn by drummers and visitors, but it is doubtful if it had ever really experienced one personally adorning one of its own citizens.  A few years before it had been currently reported that Jed Lewis was about to have such a suit to be married in, but it turned out that the major part of the sum to be devoted to that purpose actually went as the first payment on a parlor organ and that Lafe Atwell purveyed the wedding garment.  This denouement had created a breath of dissatisfaction with Jed, and there were those who argued that organs were more wasteful than clothes, because you could go to church of a Sunday, drop a dime in the collection plate, and hear all the organ music a body needed to hear.

So now Scattergood regarded Ovid speculatively through the window, setting on opposite mental columns Ovid’s salary of nine hundred dollars a year and the probable total cost of tailor-made clothes and weekly trips down the line on the “three-o’clock.”