ordless shout in a tone of
wondering derision.

"I have more to say--" William began.

But Mr. Baxter cut him off. "A dress-suit!" he cried. "Well, I'm glad
you were talking about SOMETHING, because I honestly thought it must be
too much sun!"

At this, the troubled William brought his eyes down from the porch roof
and forgot his rehearsal. He lifted his hand appealingly. "Father," he
said, "I GOT to have one!"

"'Got to'!" Mr. Baxter laughed a laugh that chilled the supplicant
through and through. "At your age I thought I was lucky if I had ANY
suit that was fit to be seen in. You're too young, Willie. I don't want
you to get your mind on such stuff, and if I have my way, you won't have
a dress-suit for four years more, anyhow."

"Father, I GOT to have one. I got to have one right away!" The urgency
in William's voice was almost tearful. "I don't ask you to have it made,
or to go to expensive tailors, but there's plenty of good ready-made
ones that only cost about forty dollars; they're advertised in the
paper. Father, wouldn't you spend just forty dollars? I'll pay it back
when I'm in business; I'll work--"

Mr. Baxter waved all this aside. "It's not the money. It's the principle
that I'm standing for, and I don't intend--"

"Father, WON'T you do it?"

"No, I will not!"

William saw that sentence had been passed and all appeals for a new
trial denied. He choked, and rushed into the house without more ado.

"Poor boy!" his mother said.

"Poor boy nothing!" fumed Mr. Baxter. "He's about lost his mind over
that Miss Pratt. Think of his coming out here and starting a regular
debating society declamation before his mother and father! Why, I never
heard anything like it in my life! I don't like to hurt his feelings,
and I'd give him anything I could afford that would do him any good,
but all he wants it for now is to splurge around in at this party before
that little yellow-haired girl! I guess he can wear the kind of clothes
most of the other boys wear--the kind _I_ wore at parties--and never
thought of wearing anything else. What's the world getting to be
like? Seventeen years old and throws a fit because he can't have a
dress-suit!"

Mrs. Baxter looked thoughtful. "But--but suppose he felt he couldn't go
to the dance unless he wore one, poor boy--"

"All the better," said Mr. Baxter, firmly. "Do him good to keep away and
get his mind on something else."

"Of course," she suggested, with some timidity,