Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow | Page 4

to Madame Jannaway's. Have you got my purse, dear? Oh, it's all right, I've got it."
"Well, now you haven't decided whether you're going to have the grey or the red."
"I'm sure I don't know what I do want now. I had made up my mind a minute ago, and now it's all gone again--oh yes, I remember, the red. Yes, I'll have the red. No, I don't mean the red, I mean the grey."
"You were talking about the red last time, if you remember, dear."
"Oh, so I was, you're quite right. That's the worst of shopping. Do you know I get quite confused sometimes."
"Then you will decide on the red, madam?"
"Yes--yes, I shan't do any better, shall I, dear? What do you think? You haven't got any other shades of red, have you? This is such an ugly red."
The shopman reminds her that she has seen all the other reds, and that this is the particular shade she selected and admired.
"Oh, very well," she replies, with the air of one from whom all earthly cares are falling, "I must take that then, I suppose. I can't be worried about it any longer. I've wasted half the morning already."
Outside she recollects three insuperable objections to the red, and four unanswerable arguments why she should have selected the grey. She wonders would they change it, if she went back and asked to see the shopwalker? Her friend, who wants her lunch, thinks not.
"That is what I hate about shopping," she says. "One never has time to really THINK."
She says she shan't go to that shop again.
We laugh at her, but are we so very much better? Come, my superior male friend, have you never stood, amid your wardrobe, undecided whether, in her eyes, you would appear more imposing, clad in the rough tweed suit that so admirably displays your broad shoulders; or in the orthodox black frock, that, after all, is perhaps more suitable to the figure of a man approaching--let us say, the nine-and-twenties? Or, better still, why not riding costume? Did we not hear her say how well Jones looked in his top-boots and breeches, and, "hang it all," we have a better leg than Jones. What a pity riding-breeches are made so baggy nowadays. Why is it that male fashions tend more and more to hide the male leg? As women have become less and less ashamed of theirs, we have become more and more reticent of ours. Why are the silken hose, the tight-fitting pantaloons, the neat kneebreeches of our forefathers impossible to-day? Are we grown more modest--or has there come about a falling off, rendering concealment advisable?
I can never understand, myself, why women love us. It must be our honest worth, our sterling merit, that attracts them--certainly not our appearance, in a pair of tweed "dittos," black angora coat and vest, stand-up collar, and chimney-pot hat! No, it must be our sheer force of character that compels their admiration.
What a good time our ancestors must have had was borne in upon me when, on one occasion, I appeared in character at a fancy dress ball. What I represented I am unable to say, and I don't particularly care. I only know it was something military. I also remember that the costume was two sizes too small for me in the chest, and thereabouts; and three sizes too large for me in the hat. I padded the hat, and dined in the middle of the day off a chop and half a glass of soda-water. I have gained prizes as a boy for mathematics, also for scripture history--not often, but I have done it. A literary critic, now dead, once praised a book of mine. I know there have been occasions when my conduct has won the approbation of good men; but never--never in my whole life, have I felt more proud, more satisfied with myself than on that evening when, the last hook fastened, I gazed at my full-length Self in the cheval glass. I was a dream. I say it who should not; but I am not the only one who said it. I was a glittering dream. The groundwork was red, trimmed with gold braid wherever there was room for gold braid; and where there was no more possible room for gold braid there hung gold cords, and tassels, and straps. Gold buttons and buckles fastened me, gold embroidered belts and sashes caressed me, white horse-hair plumes waved o'er me. I am not sure that everything was in its proper place, but I managed to get everything on somehow, and I looked well. It suited me. My success was a revelation to me of female human nature. Girls who had hitherto been cold and distant gathered round me, timidly solicitous of notice. Girls on whom