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 said enviously. "Then I would always have new ties, and new shirts, and new suits."

Bill Harrison grinned. "Wouldn't make much difference in you, Dolf. You'd still look like a bursting barrel."

"I don't look like a half-starved chicken," Dolf cried indignantly.

Bill's smile broadened. "Neither do I. I lack the feathers."

Bert experienced a greater sense of the importance of the undertaking. Washington Avenue began to see more of him than it had ever seen before. Flanked by Dolf and Bill he critically inspected the workmanship of the sign-painter who lettered "H. V. Quinby, Men's Outfitter," on the store windows.' He counted the boards the carpenters built into shelves, and saw them fashion the chestnut rods for the clothes hangers. And he saw, too, through a window across the street, the moonish, inscrutable face of Old Man Clud surveying every step of the progress that was made.

"What's he so interested in?" Bert wanted to know.

Bill Harrison glanced at the window. "Who? Old Man Clud? Maybe he thinks your father'll be coming to him for money sometime."

The remark made no impression on Bert; he was absorbed in watching expressmen carry in the glass-topped show cases. In fact, he knew nothing of the man across the street save that people