"Fit him?" exclaimed Ham. "Oh, you mean ready-made goods! Of course you can't. He'll have to be measured by a tailor, and have his new suit built for him."
"Such extravagance!" emphatically remarked Mrs. Kinzer.
"Not for rich people like you, and for a wedding," replied Ham; "and Dab's a growing boy. Where is he now? I'm going to the village, and I'll take him right along with me."
There seemed to be no help for it; but that was the first point relating to the wedding, concerning which Ham Morris was permitted to have exactly his own way. His success made Dab Kinzer a fast friend of his for life, and that was something. There was also something new and wonderful to Dabney himself, in walking into a tailor's shop, picking out cloth to please himself, and being so carefully measured all over. He stretched and stretched himself in all directions, to make sure nothing should turn out too small. At the end of it all, Ham said to him,—
"Now, Dab, my boy, this suit is to be a present from me to you, on
Miranda's account."
Dab colored and hesitated for a moment: but it seemed all right, he thought; and so he came frankly out with,—
"Thank you, Ham. You always was a prime good fellow. I'll do as much for you some day. Tell you what I'll do, then: I'll have another suit made right away, of this other cloth, and have the bill for that one sent to our folks."
"Do it!" exclaimed Ham. "Do it! You've your mother's orders for that.
She's nothing to do with my gift."
"Splendid!" almost shouted Dab. "Oh, but don't I hope they'll fit!"
"Vit," said the tailor: "vill zay vit? I dell you zay vit you like a knife. You vait und zee."