Girls chattered about autos, not to give the impression that they owned them, but that they had many friends who owned them, that they were greatly in demand as auto companions--thus vicariously establishing their own social status. There was something fraternal about it, Skinner thought, like golf. The conceit occurred to him that it would be a good scheme to get up a booklet full of glib automobile, golf, and bridge chatter, to be committed to memory, and mark it, "How to Bluff One's Way into Society." It might have a wide sale. Skinner suddenly realized that his thoughts were a dark, minor chord in the general light-hearted chatter, for he cordially hated the whole blooming business of automobiles, golf, and bridge. He was the raven at the feast. Everybody seemed to be talking to somebody else. Only he was alone. He wondered why he had not been a better "mixer." Several of the boys in Meadeville that he knew of had got better positions through the friendship of their fellow commuters, because they were good "mixers," good chatterers. There was Lewis, for instance, who was just going into the Pullman with Robertson, the banker. Lewis was nothing but a social froth-juggler. He had n't half Skinner's ability, yet he was going around with the rich. Cheek--that was it--nothing but cheek that did it. Skinner detested cheek, yet Lewis had capitalized it. The result was a fine house and servants and an automobile for the man who used to walk in the slush with Skinner behind other men's cars and take either their mud or their gasoline stench. Skinner wondered if Lewis and others like him could afford their way of living. He had always looked forward with a certain satisfaction to the time when the smash would come to some of these social butterflies, with their mortgaged automobiles, and then he, Skinner, with his snug little bank account, would be the one to laugh and to chatter. This reflection greatly consoled him for wearing cheap clothes. He'd rather have his money in the bank than on his back. But the smash had n't come to any of them as yet, he reflected. On the contrary, the more money they seemed to spend, the more they seemed to make. He wondered how they managed. CHAPTER II HOW SKINNER GOT HIS RAISE Presently, Wilkes, in the seat just ahead of Skinner, folded his newspaper and turned to his neighbor. "Are you going to the reception to the new pastor at the First Presbyterian?" "Am I going? You bet I am. We're all going." The remark brought Skinner back to the things of the moment with a jerk. By Jove! Honey was going to that reception and she'd set her heart on his going with her. She'd been making over a dress for it. It seemed to Skinner she was always making something over. He had made up his mind that she'd buy something new--a lot of new things--when he'd got his raise. But now--well, it was a deuced good thing she _was_ handy with her needle.