J ack Simpson did not forget the advice Mr. Merton had given him about clothes, and a fortnight after his master had gone to Birmingham Jack went over on Saturday afternoon, and his kind friend accompanied him to one of the leading tailors there, and he was measured for two suits of clothes. He went to other shops and bought such articles as Mr. Merton recommended—hats, gloves, boots, &c. Mr. Merton smiled to himself at the grave attention which Jack paid to all he said upon the subject; but Jack was always earnest in all he undertook, and he had quite appreciated what his friend had told him as to the advantage of being dressed so as to excite no attention upon the part of those whom he would meet at Mr. Merton's.  
The following Saturday he went over again, and went again to the tailor's to try his things on.
 
"Do you want a dress suit, sir?" the foreman asked with suppressed merriment.
 
[Pg 157]
 
"What is a dress suit?" Jack said simply. "I am ignorant about these matters."
 
"A dress suit," the foreman said, struck with the young fellow's freedom from all sort of pretence or assumption, "is the dress gentlemen wear of an evening at dinner parties or other gatherings. This is it," and he showed Jack an engraving.
 
Jack looked at it—he had never seen anyone so attired.
 
"He looks very affected," he said.
 
"Oh, that is the fault of the artist," the foreman answered. "Gentlemen look just as natural in these clothes as in any other. They are quite simple, you see—all black, with open vest, white shirt, white tie and gloves, and patent leather boots."
 
A quiet smile stole over Jack's face. Humour was by no means a strong point in his character, but he was not altogether deficient in it.
 
"I had better have them," he said; "it would look strange, I suppose, not to be dressed so when others are?"
 
"It would be a little marked in the event of a dinner or evening party," the foreman answered, and so Jack gave the order.
 
It was two weeks later before he paid his first visit to Mr. Merton; for the pretty little house which the latter had taken a mile out of the town had been in the hands of the workmen and furnishers, Mr. Merton having drawn on his little capital to decorate [Pg 158]and fit up the house, so as to be a pretty home for his daughter.
 
It was, indeed, a larger house than, from the mere salary attached to his post, he could be able to afford, but he reckoned upon considerably increasing this by preparing young men for the university, and he was wise enough to know that a good establishment and a liberal table go very far in establishing and widening a connection, and in rendering people sensible to a man's merits, either in business or otherwise.
 
As Mr. Merton, M.A., late of St. John's, Cambridge, and third wrangler of his year, he had already been received with great cordiality by his colleagues, and at their houses had made the acquaintance of many of the best, if not the wealthiest men in Birmingham, for at Birmingham the terms were by no means more synonymous than they are elsewhere.
 
Jack had ordered his clothes to be sent to a small hotel near the railway station, and had arranged with the landlord that his portmanteau should be kept there, and a room be placed at his service on Saturday afternoon and Monday morning once a month for him to change his things. He had walked with Mr. Merton and seen the house, and had determined that he would always change before going there on a Saturday, in order to avoid comments by servants and others who might be visiting them.
 
In thus acting Jack had no personal thoughts in the matter; much as he always shrank from being put for[Pg 159]ward as being in any way different from others, he had otherwise no self-consciousness whatever. No lad on the pits thought less of his personal appearance or attire, and his friend Nelly had many times taken him to task for his indifference in this respect. Mr. Merton perceived advantages in Jack's position in life not being generally known, and Jack at once fell into the arrangement, and carried it out, as described, to the best of his ability. But even he could not help seeing, when he had attired himself for his first visit to Mr. Merton's house, how complete had been the change in his appearance.
 
"Who would have thought that just a little difference in the make of a coat would have made such an alteration in one's look?" he said to himself. "I feel different altogether; but that is nonsense, except that these boots are so much lighter than mine, that it seems as if I were in my stockings. Well, I suppose I shall soon be accustomed to it."
 
Packing a black coat and a few other articles in a hand-bag, and locking up the clothes he had taken off in his portmanteau, Jack started for Mr. Merton's. He was dressed in a well-fitting suit of dark tweed, with a claret-coloured neckerchief with plain gold scarf-ring. Jack's life of exercise had given him the free use of his limbs—he walked erect, and his head was well set back on his shoulders; altogether, with his crisp short waving hair, his good-humoured but resolute face, and his steadfast look, he was, although not handsome, yet a very pleasant-looking young fellow.
 
[Pg 160]
 
He soon forgot the fact of his new clothes, except that he was conscious of walking with a lightness and elasticity strange to him, and in half an hour rang at the visitors' bell of Mr. Merton's villa.
 
"A visitor, papa," said Alice, who was sitting near the window of the drawing-room. "How tiresome, just as we were expecting Jack Simpson. It is a gentleman. Why, papa!" and she clapped her hands, "it is Jack himself. I did not know him at first, he looks like a gentleman."
 
"He is a gentleman," Mr. Merton said; "a true gentleman in thought, feeling, and speech, and will soon adapt himself to the society he will meet here. Do not remark upon his dress unless he says something about it himself."
 
"Oh, papa, I should not think of such a thing. I am not so thoughtless as that."
 
The door was opened and Jack was shown in.
 
"How are you, Jack? I am glad to see you."
 
"Thank you, sir, I am always well," Jack said. Then turning to Miss Merton he asked her how she liked Birmingham. He had seen her often since the time when he first met her at the commencement of the strike, as he had helped them in their preparations for removing from Stokebridge, and had entirely got over the embarrassment which he had felt on the first evening spent there.
 
After talking for a few minutes, Jack said gravely to Mr. Merton, "I hope that these clothes will do, Mr. Merton............