At least, he displayed a handsome suit of evening clothes and asked Hiram if he was not going to wear his own dress suit. Hiram hauled the suit in question out of his trunk and carefully examined it. In his eyes the clothes looked just the same as they had when he laid them away. "Here, Jim," he said to Larry. "You and I are about of a size. I make you a free-will offering of these--pants, coat and vest! Somehow, I don't fancy my appearance in the 'soup to nuts.' My figure is not built right for such garments. I am sure no tailor could make Hiram Strong look as though he belonged in a suit of this kind." Perhaps he was right. At least, nobody considered him out of place when he arrived at the Bronson house and appeared as one of the few men who were not in evening dress. In another matter Hiram showed wisdom on this occasion. Lettie was just as kind to him as she always had been. He might have had three or four dances with her. He accepted two, and sat them out with her in a corner of the conservatory, although Ted Cheltenham danced with every girl he could find--and danced well. "You are a funny boy, Hiram Strong," said Lettie, looking at him curiously. "How so?" "Why, preferring to sit here rather than to getting out on that beautifully waxed floor," she said. "I would be 'funnier' there than I look here," he replied grimly. "I know my failings better than I used to, Lettie." "Why, Hiram!" "Sure I do. I am only going to tackle in the future what I have a fair chance to accomplish." "I cannot imagine you as a failure in anything, Hiram," she, told him very prettily. "No? I can imagine myself failing in lots of things." "But not in this new venture you are making? Father says you have wonderful pluck to attempt to go out into that strange country and risk your last cent on a wheat ranch." "I suppose it does look like a gamble," admitted Hiram. "And father says he would be glad to help you get started here, as Orrin--I mean, Theodore--is starting." "It is kind of your father, I know," agreed Hiram. "But I guess I am in a hurry. I may be glad to come back and take a job with your father again. But it will only be after I have spent every cent I own on this new venture." "And you have made good here, Hiram," she said, with some wistfulness in her voice and her look. "Don't you think you would better stay?" "Couldn't think of it, Lettie. My plans are all made." "Not--not if all your friends here asked you to?" she ventured. "Why, I am sure," Hiram laughed, but remembering in secret how Sister had finally wished him Godspeed, "that none of my real friends would want to keep me back from this thing, when I am so set on it and have been so long planning for it." "Well, perhaps not," she sighed. "Here comes Theodore, looking for me, Hiram. I have promised him the next dance."