He puts on a
high hat and a frock coat that have been on a peg behind the door
all the morning, gathers up his cane and his gloves; and, becoming
on the instant a swagger and a swaggering boulevardier, he saunters
to his favorite sidewalk cafe for a cordial glassful of a pink or
green or purple drink. When his little hour of glory is over and
done with he returns to his counter, sheds his grandeur and is
once more your humble and ingratiating servitor.
In residential London on a Sunday afternoon one beholds some weird
and wonderful costumes. On a Sunday afternoon in a sub-suburb of
a Kensington suburb I saw, passing through a drab, sad side street,
a little Cockney man with the sketchy nose and unfinished features
of his breed. He was presumably going to church, for he carried
a large Testament under his arm. He wore, among other things, a
pair of white spats, a long-tailed coat and a high hat. It was
not a regular high hat, either, but one of those trick-performing
hats which, on signal, will lie doggo or else sit up and beg. And
he was riding a bicycle of an ancient vintage!
The most impressively got-up civilians in England - or in the world,
either, for that matter - are the assistant managers and the deputy
cashiers of the big London hotels.
