I was to have an early breakfast, and start at dawn, for that was the usual way; but I had the demon's own time with my armor, and this delayed me a little. It is troublesome to get into, and there is so much detail. First you wrap a layer or two of blanket around your body for a sort of cushion, and to keep off the cold iron; then you put on your sleeves and shirt of chain-mail--these are made of small steel links woven together, and they form a fabric so flexible that if you toss your shirt on to the floor it slumps into a pile like a peck of wet fish-net; it is very heavy and is nearly the uncomfortablest material in the world for a night shirt, yet plenty used it for that--tax collectors and reformers, and one-horse kings with a defective title, and those sorts of people; then you put on your shoes--flatboats roofed over with interleaving bands of steel--and screw your clumsy spurs into the heels. Next you buckle your greaves on your legs and your cuisses on your thighs; then come your backplate and your breastplate, and you begin to feel crowded; then you hitch on to the breastplate the half-petticoat of broad overlapping bands of steel which hangs down in front but is scolloped out behind so you can sit down, and isn't any real improvement on an inverted coal-scuttle, either for looks, or for wear, or to wipe your hands on; next you belt on your sword; then you put your stove-pipe joints on to your arms, your iron gauntlets on to your hands, your iron rat-trap on to your head, with a rag of steel web hitched on to it to hang over the back of your neck--and there you are, snug as a candle in a candle-mold. This is no time to dance. Well, a man that is packed away like that is a nut that isn't worth the cracking, there is so little of the meat, when you get down to it, by comparison with the shell.