Those low-crowned straight-brimmed hats used to look exactly right with the clothes of that season, but somehow they don’t harmonize with the cut of this year. Hats are cheap, though, and there are two or three good dealers on the other side of the street, a little farther down. Keep this suit on, I suppose? All right, sir: I’ll do up the others. H’m!”—here the old man scrutinized the material of the coat made by Sarah Tweege,—“that’s splendid stuff. Great shame ’twas cut sack-fashion. There isn’t much stuff as good as that in swallow-tails nowadays .”
“Couldn’t it—I suppose it couldn’t be made over into a party coat?”
“H’m!—scarcely,—scarcely,” said the salesman, controlling his features as well as if the question were the most natural in the world. “Not enough stuff, you see; too short; sleeves not full enough; button-holes in wrong places; lapels too narrow. Besides, velvet collars have gone out. Any time you need a dress-suit, though, we’ve got a boss artist who{54} can cut it so as to do you justice. ’Tisn’t often he gets a good figure to spread himself on .”
Again Phil was profoundly grateful: he wanted to do something for that salesman, and after some thought he astonished the old fellow by thanking him for his attention and promising to send him a barrel of selected Newtown pippins. Then he placed himself in the hands of the boss artist, who studied him as if he were a model, measured him, and asked him if he needed his dress-suit at once.
“Yes; right away,” said Phil. “I can’t get it too soon. I want——” He had begun to tell that he meant to dress himself in that suit and practise before a mirror until fully satisfied that he did not look unlike other men. The boss artist told him to return in three days; then the old salesman, who had remained in attendance, remarked,—
“You have a thin fall overcoat, I suppose?”
“Oh, I won’t need an overcoat for a month yet. Why, there hasn’t been a bit of frost up our way.” Phil was already appalled by the extent of his order.
“True enough,” said the salesman, “but it doesn’t do to go out in a dress-suit without an overcoat, you know, unless you’re merely stepping from your door to a carriage; and it’s hardly the thing even then service apartment hong kong
.”
“Why, Judge Dickman——”
“Oh, yes, those old judges, who wear swallow-tails day in and day out, can do it; nothing wrong about it, of course,—only a matter of taste; but a young fellow don’t like to make himself conspicuous, you know.”
coffeeshop 