One afternoon on my way home from school, I stopped in at the Mansion House, to see if I could persuade Cy Clark, the clerk, to go fishing on the following Saturday. As I entered the door an array of tailors' samples, on a table by a front window, caught my eye. All thoughts of Cy promptly left my mind as I let my eyes feast longingly upon their checks and plaids and stripes.
The salesman, seeing that his wares had me running in a circle, assured me that the Prince of Wales had a morning suit exactly like one of his particularly violent black and white checks and that Governor Harrison had just ordered three green and red plaids.
The salesman informed me that $25 was the regular price but as a special favor I could buy at $20. Now I had $18 at home which I had earned that summer picking berries and doing chores, and finally protesting so violently I was sure he was going to weep, the drummer gave in and I raced home, broke open my china orange bank, and was back at the hotel having my measurements taken inside of ten minutes, for I was mortally afraid some one else would snap up the prize in my absence.
For the next three weeks I hung around the express office so much that old Hi Monroe threatened to lick me if I didn't keep away and not pester him.
Finally my suit came.
To tell the truth, I was somewhat startled, when I opened the box, for although the sample was pretty noticeable, the effect of the cloth made up in a suit was wonderful. From a background of stripes and checks of different colors, little knobs of brilliant purple, yellow, red, blue, and green broke out like measles on a boy's face, and I felt that maybe after all I had been a little hasty in my choice.
But when I tried the suit on, and gazed at myself in the mirror, my confidence returned, and I felt I had the one suit in town that would make people sit up and take notice. I was right.
I entered the dining room that evening just as my father was raising his saucer of tea to his lips.
"Good heavens!" he cried, spilling the tea in seven different directions.
"Why William, what have you got on?" my mother asked.