“Oh, yes,” answered Myles, whose self-esteem had just received the severest shock of the day by learning the secret of his recent success, which he had fondly imagined was owing to something far different. “Yes, it worked all right; but I’ve always heard that clothes did not make the man, while here is proof positive that clothes can at least make a reporter. It is awfully humiliating, and the worst of it is that I haven’t a dress-suit.”
“Why, I have seen you wear it time and again?” exclaimed Van Cleef.
“Yes, but I found it necessary to raise a little ready money to-day,” answered Myles, though he hated to make the admission; “so I sold it along with some other things I thought I should never need again to Johnny, the ‘old-clo’ man.’”
“You don’t mean it!” cried Van Cleef. “Well, that is bad, and the only thing for you to do is to go to Johnny first thing in the morning and make him let you have it back.”
“But I am afraid I haven’t money enough to redeem it,” said Myles, with a heightened color. In the set to which he had so recently belonged poverty was the thing most sneered at, and Myles had not yet learned that it was one of the last things to be ashamed of.
“Oh, I can make that all right,” answered the other, cheerfully. “I have a few dollars put away against next year’s term-bills, and you are more than welcome to them. Yes, indeed, you must take them,” he added, earnestly, as he saw the shadow of a refusal in his companion’s face. “We must get hold of that dress-suit again if it is a possible thing. It will really be doing me a favor besides; for while I have them I’m always tempted to spend those dollars. If they are invested as a loan, though, I can’t spend them, and I shall have the satisfaction of knowing they are safe.”
Myles had tried, unsuccessfully, to borrow a small sum of money that morning from several of his wealthy classmates. Now, to have this generous offer made by one of the very poorest among them was so overwhelming that he hardly knew what to say. He hated to accept money from one who was so little able to spare it. He also feared to hurt his friend’s feelings by refusing, and he realized the importance of recovering that dress-suit. These thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant, and then he did exactly the right thing, by heartily thanking Van Cleef for his kind offer and accepting it.