"I know," Perkins persisted, "but see what our Skinner's habits have been in the past--penurious. Why the sudden change? You know just as well as I do that a clerk can't travel around with the rich." "Why not? The man's been saving money for years--got a bank account. All these little things we've noticed you could cover with a few hundred dollars. Come, Perk, out with it! Just what do you mean?" "It's only a suggestion, Mac, not even a hint--but Pullman cars are great hot-beds for hatching all kinds of financial schemes. That's where you get your Wall Street tips--that's where they grow." McLaughlin looked serious. He drummed on his desk with the paper-cutter and waited. "Tips are very good when they go right," Perkins went on, "but when they go wrong--" He hesitated. "I get you. They're dangerous to a man who is employed in a fiduciary capacity," said McLaughlin very quietly. "I believe as you do," urged Perkins, "that Skinner is the most honest and loyal man in America--but other honest and loyal men--well, darn it, they're all human." "Well?" McLaughlin observed, and waited. "It's a part of wisdom to be cautious. It's just as much for his good as it is for ours. An ounce of prevention, you know. Besides, it's _our_ money he's handling." "You may be right," said McLaughlin, rising. "But go slow--wait a little. I'll keep my eye on the Meadeville end of it for a while." Skinner not only "listened" himself into the affections of Stephen Colby, but into the affections of other members of the "gold-bug" set as well. He won his way more with his ears than with his tongue. He'd only been a member of the Pullman contingent a fortnight when he and Honey were invited to dine with the Howard Hemingways. There they met all the vicarious members of the Pullman Club--the wives. The Hemingway dinner was an open sesame to the Skinners. The ladies of the "walled-in" element began to take Honey up. They called on her. She was made a member of the bridge club. It cost Honey something to learn the game,--some small money losses,--but these were never charged to the dress-suit account, for a very obvious reason. So popular did the Skinners become that it was seldom they dined at home. Skinner, methodical man that he was, put down in his little book to the credit of the dress-suit account, not the value of the dinner they got, but what they'd actually saved on each occasion. And he began to feel that the dress suit was earning good interest in cash on the investment.