Nasby in Exile: or, Six Months of Travel in England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium, with many things not of travel
John Locke · en
Then comes an animated discussion. You insist that it never has been
your habit to go about in a sack, that you prefer not to appear habited
in a bag. The tailor stands off a foot or two, and admits that while it
is perhaps "a trifle easy," it is still a proper garment and quite in
the mode. But if you prefer he will alter it. Prefer! why it will fit
Daniel Lambert. It is twice too large for you and of course it must be
altered. Then he takes French chalk, and makes a lot of marks on it and
you leave it. In a few days he sends it to you altered. You put it on,
and commence swearing if you are a profane man, and objurgating, if you
are not. I objurgated. For the trowsers hang about your legs like bags,
the waistcoat climbs up the back of your neck to the ears, the coat is
loose where it should fit closely, it is tight where it should be easy,
the skirts hang about you awkwardly, it is angular, stiff and awkward,
and yet it comes so near to being a garment that you are compelled to
take it, especially, as, following the advice of the infernal tourist
who said to you to take only one suit with you, you must have it at
once. And so you put it on, and go out into the street, feeling as
though you were an object to be stared at, and blighted. You bear not
only the burden of physical discomfort, for a misfit is always
uncomfortable, but have the consciousness that you are badly dressed,
and that every bad point in your physical make-up, is made still more
conspicuous by the lack of skill in a tailor.
[Sidenote: THE MIX IN CLOTHES.]
The only comfort you have is that everybody else is just as badly
apparelled. Your American friends know at a glance that it is not your
fault, but that you have passed under the blighting shears of an English
tailor, and your English friends are all in the same fix. But then they
enjoy bad clothes, never having had any other.
There were four Americans in one house in London who each ordered a suit
of clothes of one tailor at one time. The four suits came home Saturday
evening, and were all tried on Sunday morning. One was tall and slender,
another short and stout, the third was dumpy, and the fourth was medium
in height and breadth.
[Illustration: THE SUITS COME HOME.]
No. 1 rushed into my room. "Look here," he exclaimed "there is a mistake
somewhere. These clothes must be yours. They were never made for me."
No. 2 entered. "These d----d trowsers must be yours. They were never
made for me."