I doubted whether it
would fit the lounge we have at home - though, with stretching, it
might, at that. My choice finally fell on an English raincoat and
a pair of those baggy knee breeches such as an Englishman wears
when he goes to Scotland for the moor shooting, or to the National
Gallery, or any other damp, misty, rheumatic place.
I got the raincoat first. It was built to my measure; at least
that was the understanding; but you give an English tailor an inch
and he takes an ell. This particular tailor seemed to labor under
the impression that I was going to use my raincoat for holding
large public assemblies or social gatherings in - nothing that I
could say convinced him that I desired it for individual use; so
he modeled it on a generous spreading design, big at the bottom
and sloping up toward the top like a pagoda. Equipped with guy
ropes and a centerpole it would make a first-rate marquee for a
garden party - in case of bad weather the refreshments could be
served under it; but as a raincoat I did not particularly fancy
it. When I put it on I sort of reminded myself of a covered wagon.
Nothing daunted by this I looked up the address of a sporting tailor
in a side street off Regent Street, whose genius was reputed to
find an artistic outlet in knee breeches. Before visiting his
shop I disclosed my purpose to my traveling companion, an individual
in whose judgment and good taste I have ordinarily every confidence,
and who has a way of coming directly to the meat of a subject.
"What do you want with a pair of knee breeches?" inquired this
person crisply.
"Why - er - for general sporting occasions," I replied.
"For instance, what occasions?"
"For golfing," I said, "and for riding, you know. And if I should
go West next year they would come in very handy for the shooting."
"To begin with," said my companion, "you do not golf. The only
extensive riding I have ever heard of your doing was on railway
trains. And if these knee breeches you contemplate buying are
anything like the knee breeches I have seen here in London, and
if you should wear them out West among the impulsive Western people,
there would undoubtedly be a good deal of shooting; but I doubt
whether you would enjoy it - they might hit you!"
"Look here!" I said. "Every man in America who wears duck pants
doesn't run a poultry farm. And the presence of a sailor hat in
the summertime does not necessarily imply that the man under it
owns a yacht. I cannot go back home to New York and face other
and older members of the When-I-Was-in-London Club without some
sartorial credentials to show for my trip. I am firmly committed
to this undertaking. Do not seek to dissuade me, I beg of you.
My mind is set on knee breeches and I shan't be happy until I get
them."
So saying I betook myself to the establishment of this sporting
tailor in the side street off Regent Street; and there, without
much difficulty, I formed the acquaintance of a salesman of suave
and urbane manners. With his assistance I picked out a distinctive,
not to say striking, pattern in an effect of plaids. The goods,
he said, were made of the wool of a Scotch sheep in the natural
colors. They must have some pretty fancy-looking sheep in Scotland!
This done, the salesman turned me over to a cutter, who took me
to a small room where incompleted garments were hanging all about
like the quartered carcasses of animals in a butcher shop. The
cutter was a person who dropped his H's and then, catching
himself, gathered them all up again and put them back in his
speech - in the wrong places. He surveyed me extensively with a
square and a measuring line, meantime taking many notes, and told
me to come back on the next day but one.
On the day named and at the hour appointed I was back. He had the
garments ready for me. As, with an air of pride, he elevated them
for my inspection, they seemed commodious - indeed, voluminous. I
had told him, when making them, to take all the latitude he needed;
but it looked now as though he had got it confused in his mind
with longitude. Those breeches appeared to be constructed for
cargo rather than speed.
With some internal misgivings I lowered my person into them while
he held them in position, and when I had descended as far as I
could go without entirely immuring myself, he buttoned the dewdabs
at the knees; then he went round behind me and cinched them in
abruptly, so that of a sudden they became quite snug at the
waistline; the only trouble was that the waistline had moved close
up under my armpits, practically eliminating about a foot and a
half of me that I had always theretofore regarded as indispensable
to the general effect. Right in the middle of my back, up between
my shoulder blades there was a stiff, hard clump of something that
bored into my spine uncomfortably. I could feel it quite
plainly - lumpy and rough.
"Ow's that, sir?" he cheerily asked me, over my shoulder; but it
seemed to me there was a strained, nervous note in his voice. "A
bit of all right - eh, sir?"
"Well," I said, standing on tiptoe in an effort to see over the
top, "you've certainly behaved very generously toward me - I'll say
that much. Midships there appears to be about four or five yards
of material I do not actually need in my business, being, as it
happens, neither a harem favorite nor a professional sackracer.
