When they came out of the last shop Tinker said, with the deep breath of one relieved of a heavy responsibility, "There--I think you'll look all right--as far as a French tailor can do it."
"I ought to, after all the trouble you've taken, sonny," said Septimus Rainer, smiling.
"You have to take trouble about dressing a man. A woman is easy enough. I got Elsie her clothes in about an hour. But a man is much more difficult. And clothes are so important," said Tinker gravely.
"I suppose they are--over here," said Septimus Rainer.
"I'm glad you don't take them really seriously," said Tinker, approving his tone, "because you'll soon get into the way of wearing them when you've got them. It's very funny, but well-dressed Americans--men, I mean--don't often wear their clothes properly; they look as if they felt so awfully well-dressed. I don't think you will."
"Now you've told me about it, I'll try not to."
"I think you'll want a good man, though, to keep you up to the mark. You might get slack, don't you know?"
"No, no; I can't have a valet, and I won't," said Septimus Rainer firmly.
"Ah, we shall have to see what Dorothy says about that," said Tinker with a smile of doubtful meaning.
"That's playing it rather low down on me, isn't it?" said Septimus Rainer reproachfully. "It's--it's coercion."
"Oh, if you have to wear clothes, you may as well do it thoroughly. You see, it's been put into my hands, and I must go through with it," said Tinker apologetically.
"And now," Tinker went on, regarding him with another cold, calculating air, that of a proprietor, "I think I'll take you to a hair-dresser, and have your hair and beard dealt with."
"Crop away! crop away!" said the millionaire.
Tinker took him to a hair-dresser, and told the man exactly how he wanted the hair and beard cut. "He'd make you a French American, too, if I let him," he said to Septimus Rainer.
When the hair-dresser had done, the millionaire looked at himself in the glass with approval, and said, "Well, I do look spick and span, though gritty; yes--sir."
"You'll look better when you have your clothes," said Tinker. "And, now, I think you must want a drink."
"That is so, sonny. This is dry work, this getting clothes."
Tinker took him to a café, adorned with an American bar. Septimus Rainer lighted a cigar and refreshed himself with the whiskey sour of his native land; Tinker ate ices. Over these agreeable occupations they talked; and the millionaire derived considerable entertainment and no little instruction from his young companion's views of life on the Mediterranean littoral, illustrated from the passing pleasure-seekers.