The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-06-16
Minnie to the new coat and exclaimed

Minnie to the new coat and exclaimed in many ruptures: "You darling Its-it's the regular thingm
 "Are you satisfed?" asked the wife, wishing him to commit herself beyond retraction before she divulged the low origin of the suit,
 'Of course" cried Alec warmly, wishing he were a woman, % that he could gnsh a little. 'sSatisfed? Why, it's one of Ackerman's best-that's what it is. See the way 1t fits. l could tell that was Alderman a mile off.n
 When he had raved for ten minutes Minnie confessed the history of the suit. "So you see. after all,s she said at last, "we women do know some thing"
 MT. Blossom looked at the coat more critically, trying to detect blemish but he couldn't.
 "Are you still satisfed?" asked Minnie. He had to admit that he was.
 "Now, how much do you suppose il cost?s
 Mir. Blossom couldn't tell. "Now a tailor" he began.
 "Tailor!" cried Minnie. "You mean robber. counted on just $40, and out of that have this suit, which you say you like, and this dress Of mine. You would have paid $75 for the suit alone. Tomorrow l shall go and pay up, and warn you that every cent have left out of the $40 shall spend on candy, every single cent For Minnie had the woman's love oi extravaganza, after all.
 So this was Mrs. Blossom's triumph. Not gentleman at the club was better dressed than her husband.
 They were both in raptures. Alex ander especially, when he had con- vinced himself that his suit did not proclaim to the world the disgracetul truth that it had been constructed by dressmaker.
 The next evening, when Mir. Blos- som came home and instituted the search for Minnie, she did not leap out at him from her old unthought- of hiding place. She was in her room and crying.
 "What's the matter?" asked Alex ander. She did not reply at first, but still kept her head from him, but when she had been wrought up to the proper state of sympathy and alarm she cried little more bitterly than before, and quite unconsciously re- faxed her grasp on piece of crumpled paper. Alexander divined that this dingy scrap was the source of the trouble, and picked 1t up. It con- tained atrocious writing executed in red ink, and looked like the work of a dynamiter. But 1t was not so brief. It began "Mrs. Blossom to Mrs. Darden, mans Dress Suite," and after eighteen or twenty lines of trim mings, Things, buttons, extra cloth, making, &c., culminated In "totle S39." Under this "totle" Minnie had written in trembling 6gures what she owed the tailor, thirty three dollars and then she had made "totle" of her own. The dress suit had cost her seventy two dollars.
 "You'll hate me-" she sobbed you'll think you've married sim pleton."
 Alexander was not distinguished for keen insight into human nature but with so beautiful and appealing a creature as Minnie in tears who would not know the proper chord?
 "Simpleton he cried and dis trusting the power of words alone he seized her by the waist, "sae jimp,' and gleetully whisked her about the room. "So you want compliment on your financiering2 You shall have It. You have got thing worth seventy five dollars for seventy-two; made three dollars by simply turning over your somewhat dimpled hand. Simpleton, forsooth, you are a money grubber! Take me to the theater, capital and I will give the supper afterwards. Eh! What do you think of that?"
 Minnie, flying from tears to smiles, foolishly thought Alexander more adorable than ever, and that evening at the play, although 1t was a very fatal tragedy, they successfully main- tained the highest spirits. But bet ter than all, when the story was re- lated to Minnie's father, he-knowing how to strike the right chord-imme- diately presented her with a large check as a guarantee that her first charming futile efforts st economy were properly appreciated.