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.  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.”