Still, nothing should prevent him
from telling Kitty, who knew how to keep a secret. He picked up the
newspaper and resumed his computation of averages (batting), chuckling
audibly from time to time. Clothes!
At quarter to six Thomas returned to the house, laden with fat bundles
which he hurried secretly to his room. He had never worn a dress-suit.
He had often guilelessly dreamed of possessing one: between paragraphs,
as another young man might have dreamed of vanquishing a rival. It was
inborn that we should wish to appear well in public; to better one's
condition, or, next best, to make the public believe one has. Thomas
was deeply observant and quickly adaptive. Between the man who goes to
school _with_ books and the man who goes to school _in_ books there is
wide difference. What we are forced to learn seldom lifts us above the
ordinary; what we learn by inclination plows our fields and reaps our
harvests. It is as natural as breathing that we should like our
tonics, mental as well as physical, sugar-coated.
Thomas had never worn a dress-suit; but in the matter of collars and
cravats and shirts he knew the last word.
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