Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow | Page 4

it yourself."
"No, personally I prefer the grey. But then one must think of
EVERYTHING, and--Good gracious! that's surely not the right time?"
"No, madam, it's ten minutes slow. We always keep our clocks a little
slow!"
"And we were too have been at Madame Jannaway's at a quarter past
twelve. How long shopping does take I--Why, whatever time did we
start?"
"About eleven, wasn't it?"
"Half-past ten. I remember now; because, you know, we said we'd start
at half-past nine. We've been two hours already!"
"And we don't seem to have done much, do we?"
"Done literally nothing, and I meant to have done so much. I must go 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