Into His Window He Puts Everything
He Has In His Shop Except The Customer.
The customer is in the
rear, with all avenues of escape expertly fenced off from him by
the proprietor and the clerks; but the stock itself is in the
show-window.
There are just two department stores in London where, according
to the American viewpoint, the windows are attractively dressed.
One of these stores is owned by an American, and the other, I
believe, is managed by an American. In Paris there are many shops
that are veritable jewel-boxes for beauty and taste; but these are
the small specialty shops, very expensive and highly perfumed.
The Paris department stores are worse jumbles even than the English
department stores. When there is a special sale under way the
bargain counters are rigged up on the sidewalks. There, in the
open air, buyer and seller will chaffer and bicker, and wrangle
and quarrel, and kiss and make up again - for all the world to see.
One of the free sights of Paris is a frugal Frenchman, with his
face extensively haired over, pawing like a Skye terrier through a
heap of marked-down lingerie; picking out things for the female
members of his household to wear - now testing some material with
his tongue; now holding a most personal article up in the sunlight
to examine the fabric - while the wife stands humbly, dumbly by,
waiting for him to complete his selections. So far as London was
concerned, I decided to deny myself any extensive orgy in
haberdashery. From similar motives I did not invest in the lounge
suit to which an Englishman is addicted. 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.
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