Civil service -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction
"We are not prepared to give the exact name of the artist by whom Mr.
Macassar Jones was turned out to the world so perfectly dressed a man.
Were we to do so, the signal service done to one establishment by such
an advertisement would draw down on us the anger of the trade at
large, and the tailors of London would be in league against the _Daily
Delight_. It is sufficient to remark that the artist's offices are not
a hundred miles from Pall Mall. Nor need we expressly name the bootmaker
to whom is confided the task of making those feet 'small by degrees and
beautifully less.' The process, we understand, has been painful, but the
effect is no doubt remunerative.
"In three especial walks of dress has Macassar Jones been more than
ordinarily careful to create a sensation; and we believe we may assert
that he has been successful in all. We have already alluded to his feet.
Ascending from them, and ascending not far, we come to his coat. It is
needless to say that it is a frock; needless to say that it is a long
frock--long as those usually worn by younger infants, and apparently
made so for the same purpose. But look at the exquisitely small
proportions of the collar; look at the grace of the long sleeves, the
length of back, the propriety, the innate respectability, the perfect
decorum--we had almost said the high moral worth--of the whole. Who
would not willingly sacrifice any individual existence that he might
become the exponent of such a coat? Macassar Jones was proud to do so.
"But he had bestowed perhaps the greatest amount of personal attention
on his collar. It was a matter more within his own grasp than those
great and important articles to which attention has been already drawn;
but one, nevertheless, on which he was able to expend the whole amount
of his energy and genius. Some people may think that an all-rounder is
an all-rounder, and that if one is careful to get an all-rounder one has
done all that is necessary. But so thought not Macassar Jones. Some
men wear collars of two plies of linen, some men of three; but Macassar
Jones wore collars of four plies. Some men--some sensual, self-indulgent
men--appear to think that the collar should be made for the neck; but
Macassar Jones knew better. He, who never spared him self when the cause
was good, he knew that the neck had been made for the collar--it was at
any rate evident that such was the case with his own. Little can be said
of his head, except that it was small, narrow, and genteel; but his hat
might be spoken of, and perhaps with advantage. Of the loose but studied
tie of his inch-wide cravat a paragraph might be made; but we would fain
not be tedious.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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