But father insisted on pursuing his favorite phantom, and a protean phantom it was, judging from the jobs he worked at.

I shall never forget the evening he brought home his street pedler's outfit of shoe-laces and suspenders, nor the time I went into the little corner grocery to make some purchase and had him wait on me.

After that I was not surprised when he tended bar for a week in the saloon across the street.

He worked as a night watchman, hawked potatoes on the street, pasted labels in a cannery warehouse, was utility man in a paper-box factory, and water-carrier for a street railway construction gang, and even joined the Dishwashers' Union just before it fell to pieces.
I think the Bishop's example, so far as wearing apparel was concerned, must have fascinated father, for he wore the cheap cotton shirt of the laborer and the overalls with the narrow strap about the hips.

Yet one habit remained to him from the old life; he always dressed for dinner, or supper, rather.
I could be happy anywhere with Ernest; and father's happiness in our changed circumstances rounded out my own happiness.
"When I was a boy," father said, "I was very curious.