At the thought that at last after sixteen long and eventful years the supreme moment had come when he would step out of the shell of adolescence and greet the waiting world in his first forty-dollar, custom-made dress suit, in high collar, white stiff bosom, two tails pendant, Skippy shivered slightly and drew a deep, delightfully terrified breath. "We'll put it over all right," he said loudly, and he began to whistle as is the instinct of boyhood, whether facing the possibility of a parental caning; screwing up courage to ring her doorbell; or turning a gloomy corner in the moonlight where something horrid and shapeless may be lurking. Twenty minutes later, as he was solicitously examining the crease in the soft lovely black trousers, after hanging the swallow-tailed coat over a padded hanger, Snorky came in with a face of thunder. "Well, what _do_ you think?" he said nervously. "They forgot to put in the pants," said Skippy, leaping to the worst. "Shucks, no. There's a party on to-night." "A party?" "There'll be millions of people to dinner and a dance after." "What of it?" said Skippy loudly, though the chill began to ascend from his feet. "My Lord--" "Say, you're not losing your nerve, you chicken-hearted rabbit, are you?" said Skippy, who was now absolutely terrified. "You mean you're game?" "Snorky! I wouldn't have believed it of you!" "Say, it isn't your family or your sister," said Snorky angrily. "My aunt's cat's pants, how they'll howl!" Skippy prepared for the great event by what would have sufficed for a European semi-annual immersion and, emerging spotless and stainless from the bath, with his derby closely pressed over the niceties of his parted hair, perceived that he had still forty-two minutes left of the hour and a half he had allotted to this supreme toilette. "My Lord, I hope I've got everything," he said, standing in diaphanous contemplation. The one thing that worried him a little was the studs. They had looked over twenty different varieties, flat ones and solid gold ones, spirals, encrusted studs, and studs that anchored with a queer twist. Finally they had allowed themselves to be persuaded by a flashy clerk and settled on a patent imitation pearl stud that pushed in and stuck, simplest thing in the world, like the click of a spring lock; that would leave the beautiful creamy white expanse of shirt absolutely unruffled by any preliminary struggle. "Shall I try 'em on first?" he thought, glancing down at the immaculate bosom. But at this moment a voice behind him cried pompously. "Old top. Cast your eye on this." Skippy gazed and his courage rose. His private opinion was that Snorky looked like a French butcher going to a morning wedding in hired regalia. "The suit's a lalapazooza!" he said carefully.