“H’m!--scarcely,--scarcely,” said the salesman, controlling his features as well as if the question were the most natural in the world. “Not enough stuff, you see; too short; sleeves not full enough; button-holes in wrong places; lapels too narrow. Besides, velvet collars have gone out. Any time you need a dress-suit, though, we’ve got a boss artist who can cut it so as to do you justice. ’Tisn’t often he gets a good figure to spread himself on.” Again Phil was profoundly grateful: he wanted to do something for that salesman, and after some thought he astonished the old fellow by thanking him for his attention and promising to send him a barrel of selected Newtown pippins. Then he placed himself in the hands of the boss artist, who studied him as if he were a model, measured him, and asked him if he needed his dress-suit at once. “Yes; right away,” said Phil. “I can’t get it too soon. I want----” He had begun to tell that he meant to dress himself in that suit and practise before a mirror until fully satisfied that he did not look unlike other men. The boss artist told him to return in three days; then the old salesman, who had remained in attendance, remarked,-- “You have a thin fall overcoat, I suppose?” “Oh, I won’t need an overcoat for a month yet. Why, there hasn’t been a bit of frost up our way.” Phil was already appalled by the extent of his order. “True enough,” said the salesman, “but it doesn’t do to go out in a dress-suit without an overcoat, you know, unless you’re merely stepping from your door to a carriage; and it’s hardly the thing even then.” “Why, Judge Dickman----” “Oh, yes, those old judges, who wear swallow-tails day in and day out, can do it; nothing wrong about it, of course,--only a matter of taste; but a young fellow don’t like to make himself conspicuous, you know.” Phil meekly purchased an overcoat, and hurried away with a heavy load on his conscience. More than three-quarters of the hundred dollars his father had given him was already gone or mortgaged; he had meant to spend none of it, except for some things which he knew his mother craved. Fortunately, he had brought some savings of his own; and, as he informed himself, hair-cutting was not an expensive operation, and the clothing-salesman had told him that new hats did not cost much. He had nothing else to spend money for, except a watch-chain; his father had told him to buy one. Indeed, had not his father told him to buy clothes?--“lots of them,” were the old gentleman’s exact words. But could his father have known about evening suits and fall overcoats? Phil continued in this vein of thought after he had dropped into a barber’s chair, but was startled out of it by finding a lather-brush passing over his face. He struggled, and exclaimed,-- “I wanted my hair cut.” “Yes, sir, so I heard you say; but when shaving has to be done too we like to have that out of the way first. But I beg your pardon, perhaps you were raising a beard?”