"How was it the change came?"
"I don't know." Owen ordered a thousand cigars to be sent to Berkeley
Square.
It was late for tea, and still too early for dinner.
"I am sorry to ask you to dine at such an early hour, but I daresay we shan't have dinner till half-past seven."
But Harding remembered his tailor: some trousers. And he led Owen towards Hanover Square, wondering if Owen would approve of his choice?
"It was like you to choose that grey."
Now what was there to find fault with in the grey he had chosen? They turned over the tailor's pattern sheet. Daring, in the art of dressing, is the prescriptive right of the professional just as it is in writing. Owen was a professional dresser, whereas he, Harding, was but an amateur; and that was why he had chosen a timid, insignificant grey. At once Owen discovered a much more effective cloth; and he chose a coat for Harding, who wanted one—the same rough material which Harding had often admired on Owen's shoulders. But would such a dashing coat suit him as well as it did its originator, and dare he wear the fancy waistcoats Owen was pressing upon him?
"They suit you, Asher, but you still go in at the waist, and brown trousers look well on legs as straight as billiard cues."
"Is there nothing we can do for you, Sir Owen?"
Owen spoke about sending back a coat which he was not altogether satisfied with.