“Well, what do I want?  You tell me.”

“How far do you want to go?  Will five hundred be too much?”

“No.”

Cressey lost himself in mental calculations out of which he presently delivered himself to this effect: 

“Evening clothes, of course.  And a dinner-jacket suit.  Two business suits, a light and a dark.  You won’t need a morning coat, I expect, for a while.  Anyway, we’ve got to save somethin’ out for shirts and boots, haven’t we?”

“I haven’t the money with me” remarked Banneker, his innocent mind on the cash-with-order policy of Sears-Roebuck.

“Now, see here,” said Cressey, good-humoredly, yet with an effect of authority.  “This is a game that’s got to be played according to the rules.  Why, if you put down spot cash before Mertoun’s eyes he’d faint from surprise, and when he came to, he’d have no respect for you.  And a tailor’s respect for you,” continued Cressey, the sage, “shows in your togs.”

“When do I pay, then?”

“Oh, in three or four months he sends around a bill.  That’s more of a reminder to come in and order your fall outfit than it is anything else.  But you can send him a check on account, if you feel like it.”

“A check?” repeated the neophyte blankly.  “Must I have a bank account?”

“Safer than a sock, my boy.  And just as simple.  To-morrow will do for that, when we call on the shirt-makers and the shoe sharps.  I’ll put you in my bank; they’ll take you on for five hundred.”

Arrived at Mertoun’s, Banneker unobtrusively but positively developed a taste of his own in the matter of hue and pattern; one, too, which commanded Cressey’s respect.  The gilded youth’s judgment tended toward the more pronounced herringbones and homespuns.

“All right for you, who can change seven days in the week; but I’ve got to live with these clothes, day in and day out,” argued Banneker.

To which Cressey deferred, though with a sigh.  “You could carry off those sporty things as if they were woven to order for you,” he declared.  “You’ve got the figure, the carriage, the—­the whatever-the-devil it is, for it.”

Prospectively poorer by something more than four hundred dollars, Banneker emerged from Mertoun’s with his mentor.

“Gotta get home and dress for a rotten dinner,” announced that gentleman cheerfully.  “Duck in here with me,” he invited, indicating a sumptuous bar, near the tailor’s, “and get another little kick in the stomach.  No?  Oh, verrawell.  Where are you for?”

“The Public Library.”

“Gawd!” said his companion, honestly shocked.  “That’s a gloomy hole, ain’t it?”

“Not so bad, when you get used to it.  I’ve been putting in three hours a day there lately.”

“Whatever for?”

“Oh, browsing.  Book-hungry, I suppose.  Carnegie hasn’t discovered Manzanita yet, you know; so I haven’t had many library opportunities.”