won't think my mentioning this a liberty, I hope?"

"What about your own red tie and dirty collar?" young Clarkson asked,
indignantly. "What price your eight and sixpenny trousers, eh, with the
blue stripe and the grease stains? What about the sham diamond stud in
your dickey, and your three inches of pinned on cuff? Fancy your
appearance, perhaps! Why, I wouldn't walk the streets in such a
rig-out!"

Burton listened to his junior's attack unresentingly but with increasing
bewilderment. Then he slipped from his seat and walked hurriedly across
to the looking-glass, which he took down from its nail. He gazed at
himself long and steadily and from every possible angle. It is probable
that for the first time in his life he saw himself then as he really
was. He was plain, of insignificant appearance, he was ill and
tastelessly dressed. He stood there before the sixpenny-ha'penny mirror
and drank the cup of humiliation.

"Calling my tie, indeed!" the office-boy muttered, his smouldering
resentment bringing him back to the attack. "Present from my best girl,
that was, and she knows what's what. Young lady with a place in a
west-end milliner's shop, too. If that doesn't mean good taste, I
should like to know what does. Look at your socks, too, all coming down
over the tops of your boots! Nasty dirty pink and green stripes!
There's another thing about my collar, too," he continued, speaking with
renewed earnestness as he appreciated his senior's stupefaction. "It
was clean yesterday, and that's more than yours was--or the day before!"

Burton shivered as he finally turned away from that looking-glass. The
expression upon his face was indescribable.