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.
