At déjeuner Septimus Rainer told them that now he was in Europe he proposed to stay in Europe, and enjoy a little of his daughter's society. He could carry on all of his business he wanted to by cablegram and letter. One thing, however, he must have, and that was clothes, for in his haste he had come away with a gripsack and nothing more. Sir Tancred suggested that Tinker, who knew his Nice, should take him over there, and put him in the hands of the right tailor, hatter, hosier, and bootmaker; and Septimus Rainer accepted the offer gratefully.
Accordingly the two of them caught a train early in the afternoon, and went to Nice. Septimus Rainer had supposed the getting of clothes to be a simple and tiresome affair of a few minutes; you went to a tailor and said, "Make me suits of clothes," or to a bootmaker and said, "Make me pairs of boots." He was vastly mistaken. He found himself embarked upon a serious business.
He awoke to the seriousness of it in the train, when he found Tinker, who had taken his commission to heart, regarding him with a cold, calculating air, very disquieting. He endured it as long as he could, then he said cautiously, "You aren't measuring me for my coffin; are you, sonny?"
"Oh, no!" said Tinker with a reassuring smile of a seraphic sweetness. "I was only thinking how you ought to be dressed."
"Oh, anything will do for me," said Septimus Rainer carelessly.
"I'm afraid not; you see I'm responsible," said Tinker seriously. "And I was thinking that, getting your clothes here in Nice, I shall have to keep a very sharp eye on them, or they'll go dressing you like a French American—you know, an American who is dressed by a Paris tailor. And that wouldn't do at all."
"No: of course not," said Septimus Rainer quickly.
But it was not till they came to the tailor's that he realised the full seriousness of the business before them. At first he supposed that he was to have his say in the matter; but at the end of ten minutes, with a half-humorous abandonment, he put himself entirely in the hands of the conscientious Tinker, and indeed had he not done so, there is no saying that he might not have gone about the world parading a velvet collar on a grey frock coat. It was Tinker who decided, after weighty consideration, upon the colour and texture of the stuff of each suit, chose the very buttons for it, and forced upon the reluctant Niçois his ideas of the way each separate garment should be cut. Septimus Rainer was frankly bewildered at the end of half an hour; he was used, in the way of business, to carrying a multiplicity of details in his head, but these details it could not carry. When he found that Tinker had them at his finger ends, he was filled with admiration and respect.
From the tailor's they went to the hatter's; and there Septimus Rainer found himself trying on hats by the score. But, strangely enough, he did not grow weary: Tinker's absorbed interest in his task was catching to the point that at the hosier's the millionaire found himself discussing the shade of his socks with real enthusiasm.
When they came out of the last shop Tinker said, with the deep breath of one relieved of a heavy responsibility, "There—I think you'll look all right—as far as a French tailor can do it."