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Adown highways unnumbered he had sawed wood, when necessary; received handouts, worn hand-me-downs; furnished infinite material for the wags of the comic press. Long he had slept under hedges and in ricks, carried his Lares in a bandana kerchief, been forcibly bathed at free lodging-houses in icy winters.
But he did not die. He was up this morning and she would bring him in." Barclay paused again. "She brought in Charlie Tavor!... And I nearly screamed when I saw the man. He was dressed in one of those cheap hand-me-downs that the Germans used to sell in the tropics for a pound, three and six, his eyes looked as dead as glass and he was as white as plaster.
Well, here the other day I went into a store back home and asked to see a suit, and the fellow yanks out some hand-me-downs that, honest, I wouldn't put on a hired man. Just out of curiosity I asks him, 'What you charging for that junk? 'Junk, he says, 'what d' you mean junk? That's a swell piece of goods, all wool Like hell! It was nice vegetable wool, right off the Ole Plantation!
"I like the way he wears his clothes," Brent replied. "It isn't every fellow who can put on hand-me-downs and still look like they're made for him. Perhaps a small matter," he added, noting a smile of indulgence come into the old gentleman's face, "but you'll admit that it shows up favorably. It's probably an avatism pointing back to royalty; as Aunt Timmie would say, a sure sign of quality."
I shouldn't wonder if some o' my customers had things they could let us have. Once your mother would 'a' been my first thought." "Hand-me-downs?" said Ben, flushing. "Nothing doing. Surely you have credit at the stores." "Yes, I have, but it's my habit to pay my bills," was the defiant reply, "and that girl needs everything. I can't buy 'em all." Ben patted her arm.
"But I don't think we've got very much cause to complain," said Warren. "We gathered in five subscribers yesterday, and three today, besides an electric belt ad, to run for six months. Oh, we're all right, and the first thing you know, we'll have some new clothes. We don't want any hand-me-downs. About two weeks ago I went into the tailor's shop across the square, and picked out a piece of cloth.
"Do you mean to tell me that I've got to wear 'hand-me-downs'?" demanded Bert Dodge angrily. "Save that sort of stuff for fellows who'll believe it." It was plain that, if Bert Dodge had dropped in with any intention of being neighborly and from-home, he had rapidly forgotten his plan.
He was awake to the marvelous development of the ready-to-wear business. He carried the best and took a positive delight in each season's new models. He recalled the old days of "hand-me-downs," and he had lived to see the two best tailors in Medeena take to bushelling "ready" garments, with less and less of that to be done principally changing a button or shortening a trouser's length.
They had reached the steps of the Capitol. A number of women and men were entering, and Dolly turned to join them. "That's some of my crowd," she smiled. "Can't you tell by the way they stare and blink, like scared rabbits? The men's clothes look as if they still had the price-tags on them regular hand-me-downs. Good-by; I'll see you at the train."
Even to this day when I awake from some bad dream, it is a dream that I am wearing crazy breeches and all the world is jeering at me. It has made me tender toward poor children who have to wear hand-me-downs. To-day psychologists talk much of the "inferiority complex" which spurs a man forward to outdo himself.
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