Skinner's Dress Suit

"Still what of it?" persisted McLaughlin. "The Pullman habit isn't expensive – only a quarter from Meadeville."

"Oh, nothing," observed Perkins. "Nothing in itself, but new clothes and traveling round in a Pullman don't square with the fact that Skinner did n't get his raise."

McLaughlin swung around in his chair. "Say, Perk, what do you mean by these hints? You never did like Skinner."

"You're mistaken, Mac. It was his clothes I did n't like."

"You've been throwing out hints," McLaughlin reiterated, "and bothering me so much lately about Skinner, I wish to goodness I had raised his salary."

"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.

The Skinners, now that they had engaged in active social life, learned one valuable lesson, which was something of an eye-opener to them both. They found that they had constantly to be on dress parade, as it were, and that in the manners of the social devotee, no less than in his clothes, there can be no letdown. Also, they found that, on occasions, their dining out cost them more in the wear and tear on their patience than a dinner at home would have cost them in cash. For instance, when they returned from the Brewsters' dinner one night. Skinner jotted down in his little book: —

"Well, Perk," said McLaughlin one morning, "I've got an interesting bit for you. The Skinners are doing the society stunt: bridge and that sort of thing."

"That's not enough to convict."

"They're splurging. They're buying rugs and pictures!"

As a matter of fact, Honey had bought one modest rug and one modest picture to fill up certain bare spaces over against the meeting of the bridge club at her house, and being a good manager she could make any purchase "show off" to the limit. But the Skinners' ice man in detailing the thing to the McLaughlins' maid had assiduously applied the multiplication table.

McLaughlin paused.

"Well," said Perkins, "what do you make of it?"

"He's getting too big for his breeches."

"Well?" said Perkins.

"I hate to do it," said McLaughlin, "but – "

"Well?" said Perkins.

"Don't stand there saying 'well,' Perk. Help me out."

"What are you going to do about it, Mac?"

"Did you notice him this morning? He looks as worried as the devil!" McLaughlin drummed on his desk with the paper-cutter. "Perk, we've got to do something – and we've got to do it sudden."

McLaughlin turned. "Come in!" he shouted.

The boy entered and handed the senior partner a card.

"Send him in." He turned to Perkins. "It's Billings. Just you think this over to-night, Perk."

"Hello, Billings."

CHAPTER VIII

CHICKENS COMING HOME TO ROOST

Skinner did look worried, but what ailed him was very foreign to the cause that McLaughlin and Perkins suspected. He was worrying about his diminishing bank account. But it was n't the actual diminution of funds that worried him so much – he was afraid Honey would find him out.

For a long time this fear had haunted him. Like a wasp, it had buzzed constantly about his ears, threatening to sting him at any moment. It had become a veritable obsession, a mean, haunting, appetite-destroying, sleep-banishing obsession.

There were many ways in which this fear might be realized. For instance, Honey had told him that she was thinking of studying finance so as to find out all the little leakages and help them save, and that she was going to ask Mr. Waldron, the teller of the Meadeville National, to instruct her in the intricacies of banking.

What inadvertent remark might not that functionary drop and thus sow suspicion in Honey? At first, Skinner had thought of warning the teller not to discuss these things with Honey. But he made up his mind that that might direct Waldron's attention to their account and lead him to suspect something from the new process of circulation which Skinner had set going when he promoted himself. No – better let sleeping dogs lie in that direction. Instead, Skinner persuaded Honey that it would be an imposition on Mr. Waldron, take up too much of his time. He, Skinner, would give her what instruction she needed.

The more the "cage man" schemed to keep his wife from finding out the deception he'd practiced on her, the more possibilities of exposure developed, and the more apprehensive he became.

No sooner did Honey promise not to bother Mr. Waldron than another danger popped up. By Jingo! There was Mrs. McLaughlin! Honey might again mention to her something about his raise, reiterate what she had hinted at on the night of the First Presbyterian reception. No doubt, if she did, Mrs. McLaughlin would quiz her this time, find out what she was driving at, and report it to McLaughlin and make him, Skinner, a laughing-stock in the eyes of the boss. Then, by a series of recoils, McLaughlin would deny it to his wife, Mrs. McLaughlin would deny it to Honey, and there'd be the devil to pay. And paying the devil, in this particular instance, Skinner apprehended, would be a hard proposition.

Instigated by this fear, ever since the night of the First Presbyterian affair Skinner had schemed to keep Mrs. McLaughlin and Honey apart. It was easy enough at first, when they were only invited to a few affairs, but with the enlargement of their social horizon the danger loomed bigger.

Skinner knew enough about women not to warn Honey against talking confidentially with Mrs. McLaughlin, since this would excite her suspicions and recoil upon him, Skinner, with a shower of inconvenient questions. The only thing he could do, then, was to see to it that he and Honey should avoid places where the McLaughlins were liable to be. Skinner had been put to all sorts of devices to find out if the McLaughlins were going to certain parties to which he and Honey had been invited. He could n't do this very well by discussing the thing with the boss. So he had endeavored to determine the exact social status of the McLaughlins in that community and avoid the stratum in which they might circulate.

But this rule had failed him once or twice, for in communities of the description of Meadeville social life was more or less democratic and nondescript. When he had thought himself secure on certain occasions, he had bumped right into the McLaughlins and then it behooved him to stick pretty close to Honey all the evening.

This was not what he counted on, for Skinner was beginning to enjoy the sweets of broader social intercourse. He was beginning to like to talk with and dance with other women.

At times, when Skinner had received information at the last moment that the McLaughlins were to be at a party, he had affected a headache. On one of these occasions, Honey had set her heart on going and told Skinner that the Lewises had offered to take her along with them in case he should be delayed at the office – for Skinner had even pretended once or twice to be thus delayed. Presto! at Honey's words about the Lewises, Dearie's headache had disappeared.