Skinner's Dress Suit

by Henry Irving Dodge

So when Skinner stepped in at five o'clock, McLaughlin made the bluff. Skinner did n't call it. Instead, he bowed submissively, almost with relief, and without a word left for home.

Everything contributed to the drab occasion for Skinner. The weather was bad, the ferryboat steamier and smellier than ever. As he took his seat in the men's cabin, he was full of drab reflections—disappointment, deep disgust. Abysmal gloom surrounded him. His thoughts were anything but flattering to his employers, or to himself, for that matter, for Skinner was a just man. They were the cussedest, meanest people that he'd ever known. But what was the matter with him, Skinner? Why had n't he made a fight for the raise? It was that old, disgusting timidity that had been a curse to him ever since he was a boy. Others had pushed ahead through sheer cheek, while he held back, inert, afraid to assert himself. By gad, why had n't he made a fight for a raise? They could only sack him, hand him the blue envelope!

Sack him! The thought brought back the days when he had wandered from office to office, a suppliant, taking snubs, glad to get anything to do. The memory of the snubs had made more or less of a slave of him, for Skinner was a proud man, a man of very respectable family. Perhaps he ought to be glad that McLaughlin had n't done any worse than refuse him a raise.

Skinner did not stop to think that it would be easier for him to get a job now than it had been in those suppliant days. He was now experienced, skillful, more level-headed. His honesty and loyalty were a by-word in the business district.

His thoughts took another turn, and he looked at himself in the mirror. Gad! He had all the earmarks of back-numberhood. His hair was gray at the temples and he was shabby, neat but shabby. But he was only thirty-eight, he reflected,—the most interesting period of a man's life; he was wise without being old. And he was not bad-looking. He studied the reflection of his face. The picturesqueness of youth was lined—not too deeply lined—by the engraving hand of experience. What was the matter with him, then? Why was he not more of a success? Was it because he had been a "cage man" too long, always taking orders, always acquiescing subserviently, never asserting?

He looked out of the window. The river was gray, everything was gray—nothing pleased him. But the river used to be blue, always blue, when he first crossed it, a buoyant youth. The river had n't changed. It was the same river he had always loved. Then the change must be in him, Skinner. Why had he gradually ceased to enjoy things? Who was to blame for the drab existence he was suffering? Was it the outside world or himself?

As a boy, things were new to him—that was why the river was blue. But there were many things new to him to-day—peoples, countries, customs—yes, a thousand things new and interesting right in New York, close at hand, if he'd only take the trouble to look them up. Why was his ability to appreciate failing? Other men, much older than he and only clerks at that, were happy. He sighed. It must be himself, for, after all, the world had treated him as well as he had treated the world, he reflected, being a just man.

Unfortunately, on the train Skinner got a seat in the very center of a circle of social chatterboxes, male commuters, and female shoppers. Some talked of their machines and rattled off the names of the makers. There was the Pierce-Arrow, the Packard, the Buick, and all the rest of the mechanical buzz-wagons. There was an inextricable mass of phrases—six-cylinder, self-starter, non-puncturable, non-skiddable. But he did n't hear any such terms as non-collidable, non-turnoverable, or non-waltz-down-the-hillable. Nor did they spare him the patriarchal jokes about the ubiquitous Ford. They talked about the rising cost of gasoline which brought John D. in for a share of wholesome abuse. At the mention of John D. everybody turned to golf and Skinner got that delightful recreation ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

Skinner felt that this talk about machines was only to impress others with the talkers' motor lore. For familiarity with motor lore means a certain social status. It is part of the smart vernacular of to-day. Any man who can own a car has at least mounted a few steps on the social ladder. The next thing to owning a car is to be able to talk about a car, for if a man can talk well about a machine everybody 'll think that he must have had a vast experience in that line and, therefore, must be a man of affairs.

Girls chattered about autos, not to give the impression that they owned them, but that they had many friends who owned them, that they were greatly in demand as auto companions—thus vicariously establishing their own social status.