To surrender was made very difficult for me by Eugene Field, who had publicly celebrated me as "the sturdy opponent of the swallow-tail suit," and yet he himself,--though still outwardly faithful--had been heard to say, "I may be forced to wear the damned thing _yet_." In all this I felt the wind of social change. That I stood at the parting of the ways was plain to me. To continue on my present line of march would be to have as exemplars Walt Whitman, Joaquin Miller, John Burroughs and other illustrious non-conformists to whom long beards, easy collars, and short coats were natural and becoming. To take the other road was to follow Lowell and Stedman and Howells. To shorten my beard--or remove it altogether,--to wear a standing collar, and attached cuffs--to abandon my western wide-rimmed hat--these and many other "reforms" were involved in my decision. Do you wonder that I hesitated? That I was being left out of many delightful dinners and receptions had been painfully evident to me for several years, but the consideration which had most weight with me, at this time, was expressed by one of my friends who bluntly declared that all the desirable young women of my acquaintance not only adored men in evening dress but ridiculed those of us who went about at all hours of the day and night in "solemn, shiny, black frocks." I perceived that unless I paid a little more attention to tailors and barbers and haberdashers my chances for bringing a new daughter to my mother were dishearteningly remote. Secretly alarmed and meditating a shameful surrender, I was held in check by the thought of the highly involved system of buttons, ties, gloves, hats, and shoes with which I would be called upon to wrestle. Zangwill, to whom I confided my perplexity, bluntly advised me to conform. "In truth," said he, "the steel pen suit is the most democratic of garments. It renders the poor author indistinguishable from the millionaire." As usual I referred the problem to Howells. After explaining that I had in mind a plan to visit England I said, "Every one but John Burroughs says I must get into the swallow-tail coat; and I will confess that even here in New York I am often embarrassed by finding myself the only man in a frock suit at a dinner." Howells smiled and with delightful humor and that precision of phrase which made him my joy and my despair, answered, "My dear fellow, why don't you make your proposed visit to England, buy your evening suit there and on your return to Chicago plead the inexorability of English social usages?" He had pointed the way out. "By George, I'll do just that," I declared, vastly elated.