He Achieves Effects In Gaudiness Which Even Time Italian
Officer Cannot Equal.
The Italian officer is addicted to cock feathers and horsetails
on his helmet, to bits of yellow and blue let into his clothes,
to tufts of red and green hung on him in unexpected and unaccountable
spots.
Either the design of bottled Italian chianti is modeled
after the Italian officer or the Italian officer is modeled after
the bottle of chianti - which, though, I am not prepared to say
without further study of the subject.
But the Austrian officer is the walking sunset effect of creation.
For color schemes I know of nothing in Nature to equal him except
the Grand Canon of the Colorado. Circus parades are unknown in
Austria - they are not missed either; after an Austrian officer a
street parade would seem a colorless and commonplace thing. In
his uniform he runs to striking contrasts - canary yellow, with
light blue facings; silvers and grays; bright greens with scarlet
slashings - and so on.
His collar is the very highest of all high collars and the heaviest
with embroidery; his cloak is the longest and the widest; his boots
the most varnished; his sword-belt the broadest and the shiniest;
and the medals on his bosom are the most numerous and the most
glittering. Alf Ringling and John Philip Sousa would take one
look at him - and then, mutually filled with an envious despair,
they would go apart and hold a grand lodge of sorrow together.
Also, he constantly wears his spurs and his sword; he wears them
even when he is in a cafe in the evening listening to the orchestra,
drinking beer and allowing an admiring civilian to pay the check
- and that apparently is every evening.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 138 of 341
Words from 37063 to 37354
of 93169
