"You haven't any special expense," said Colton, the third guest. "Nobody depends on your salary but yourself, so why don't you cut loose? Your parents are dead, just as mine are, and you are as free as air. I can put you next to one of the best tailors in Chicago and he'll fix you out to look like a dream without skinning you to death." Jud smiled grimly when Colton said that no one but himself depended on his salary. These fellows did not know he was married. An unaccountable fear that they might ridicule him if he posed as a married man who could not support his wife had caused him to keep silent concerning his domestic affairs. Besides, he had heard these and other men speak of certain wives, often in the presence of their husbands, in a manner which shocked him. No one had asked him if he were married and he did not volunteer the information. It amused him hugely when his new acquaintances teased him about "his girl down in old Clay." Some day he would surprise them by introducing them to Justine, calmly, in a matter-of-fact way, and then he would laugh at their incredulity. "I can't afford clothes like you fellows wear," he said in response to Colton's offer. "Of course, you can--just as well as I can," said Colton. "Or any one of us," added Draper. "Clothes won't break anybody." "You're a good-looking chap, Sherrod, and if you dressed up a bit you'd crack every girl's heart in Chicago. 'Gad, I can see the splinters flying now," cried Hennessy, admiringly. "It's no joke," added Colton. "I could tog you out till you'd----" "But I haven't the money, consarn it," cried the victim, a country boy all over again. They laughed at his verdancy, and it all ended by Colton agreeing to vouch for him at the tailor's, securing for him the privilege of paying so much a month until the account was settled. Jud lay awake nights trying to decide the matter. He knew that he needed the clothes and that it was time to cast aside the shabby curiosities from Glenville. He saw that he was to become an object of ridicule if he persisted in wearing them. Pride demanded good clothes, that he might not be ashamed to be seen with well-dressed men; something else told him that he should save every penny for a day that was to come as soon as he could bring it about. At last he went to Colton and asked him what he thought the clothes would cost, first convincing himself that tailor-made garments were the only kind to be considered.