"Look here, sir!" and then he took Mr. Brown to the window. There stood eight stalwart porters, divided into two parties of four each, and on their shoulders they bore erect, supported on painted frames, an enormous pair of gilded, embroidered, brocaded, begartered wooden stockings. On the massive calves of these was set forth a statement of the usual kind, declaring that "Brown, Jones, and Robinson, of 81, Bishopsgate Street, had just received 40,000 pairs of best French silk ladies' hose direct from Lyons."
"And now look at the men's legs," said Robinson. Mr. Brown did look, and perceived that they were dressed in magenta-coloured knee-breeches, with magenta-coloured stockings. They were gorgeous in their attire, and at this moment they were starting from the door in different directions. "Perhaps you will tell me that that is not true?"
"I will say nothing about it for the future," said Mr. Brown.
"It is not true," continued Robinson; "but it is a work of fiction, in which I take leave to think that elegance and originality are combined."
"We ought to do something special in shirts," said Jones, a few days after this. "We could get a few dozen from Hodges, in King Street, and call them Eureka."
"Couldn't we have a shirt of our own?" said Mr. Robinson. "Couldn't you invent a shirt, Mr. Jones?" Jones, as Robinson looked him full in the face, ran his fingers through his scented hair, and said that he would consult his wife. Before the day was over, however, the following notice was already in type:—
Mankind in a State of Bliss!
Brown, Jones, and Robinson have sincere pleasure in presenting to the Fashionable World their new KATAKAIRION SHIRT, in which they have thoroughly overcome the difficulties, hitherto found to be insurmountable, of adjusting the bodies of the Nobility and Gentry to an article which shall be at the same time elegant, comfortable, lasting, and cheap.
B., J., and R.'s KATAKAIRION SHIRT, and their Katakairion Shirt alone, is acknowledged to unite these qualities.
Six Shirts for 39s. 9d.
The Katakairion Shirt is specially recommended to Officers going to India and elsewhere, while it is at the same time eminently adapted for the Home Consumption.
"I think I would have considered it a little more, before I committed myself," said Jones.
"Ah, yes; you would have consulted your wife; as I have not got one, I must depend on my own wits."