had consented to speak.

"It will be evening dress," said Mr. Duncan. "I suppose you are hardly
fitted out that way?"

"I guess not," said Dave, smiling broadly. He recalled the half
humorous sarcasm with which the Metford gang referred to any who might
be seen abroad in their "Hereford fronts." He had a sudden vision of
himself running the gauntlet of the ridicule.

But Mr. Duncan was continuing. "I think I can fix you up," he said.
"We must be pretty nearly of a size, and I have a spare suit." And
almost before he knew it it was arranged that Dave should attend the
dinner.

It was an eventful night for him. His shyness soon wore off, for
during these months he had been learning to accept any new experience
gladly. "Life is made up of experience," his teacher had said,
"therefore welcome every opportunity to broaden your life by travelling
in new tracks. There are just two restrictions--the injurious and the
immoral. You must grow by experience, but be sure you grow the right
way. Only a fool must personally seize the red iron to see if it will
burn. . . But most of us are fools." And as he sat among this company
of the best minds of the town he felt that a new and very real world
was opening before him. His good clothes seemed to work up in some way
through his sub-consciousness and give him a sense of capability. He
was in the mental atmosphere of men who did things, and by conforming
to their customs he had brought his mind into harmony with theirs, so
that it could receive suggestions, and--who knows?--return suggestions.
And he was made to think, think, think.

As he walked home with Mr. Duncan under the stars he spoke of the
subtle sense of well-being and ability which came with good clothes.
"I don't mind confessing I have always had something like contempt for
stylish dressing," he said. "Now I almost feel that there's something
to it."

"There is some good quality in everything that survives," said Mr.
Duncan. "Otherwise it would not survive. That doesn't mean, of
course, that the good qualities outweigh the bad, but the good must be
there. Take the use of liquor, for instance; perhaps the greatest
source of misery we have. Yet it touches a quality in man's life:
sociability, conviviality, if you like; but a quality that has virtue
in it none the less. And the errors of sex are so often linked with
love that one can scarcely say where virtue ceases and where vice
begins. I know con