“Fit you at once, from our ready-made stock. Never any trouble to fit a good figure.”
Phil could have hugged that salesman. Here, at least, was some one who did not intimate that he was from the country; and yet, perhaps, a good figure was a country product. He would think about this, as soon as business was off his mind. The salesman certainly fitted him to perfection. Phil scarcely recognized himself when asked to look in the glass.
“Don’t think you could do better,” said the veteran salesman, surveying Phil from rapidly-changing points of view, “if you were to have yourself melted and poured into a suit. The tone of that goods is rather cold, but you’ve plenty of color. I think, though, to set it off to the best advantage you need to change your black tie for a scarf with a touch of red or yellow in it: if you don’t happen to have one, you’ll find a fine assortment in our gents’ furnishing department. Needs a somewhat different style of shirt-collar, too: let some furnishing-goods man cast his eye over your neck. You always wear your hair pretty long, I suppose?—well, it’s a pity it don’t set off a man’s clothes as well as it sometimes does his face.”
Phil resolved at once to have his hair cut. Under the guidance of the salesman he had his neck-wear changed; then the old man said,—
“Those low-crowned straight-brimmed hats used to look exactly right with the clothes of that season, but somehow they don’t harmonize with the cut of this year. Hats are cheap, though, and there are two or three good dealers on the other side of the street, a little farther down. Keep this suit on, I suppose? All right, sir: I’ll do up the others. H’m!”—here the old man scrutinized the material of the coat made by Sarah Tweege,—“that’s splendid stuff. Great shame ’twas cut sack-fashion. There isn’t much stuff as good as that in swallow-tails nowadays.”
“Couldn’t it—I suppose it couldn’t be made over into a party coat?”
“H’m!—scarcely,—scarcely,” said the salesman, controlling his features as well as if the question were the most natural in the world. “Not enough stuff, you see; too short; sleeves not full enough; button-holes in wrong places; lapels too narrow. Besides, velvet collars have gone out. Any time you need a dress-suit, though, we’ve got a boss artist who can cut it so as to do you justice. ’Tisn’t often he gets a good figure to spread himself on.”
Again Phil was profoundly grateful: he wanted to do something for that salesman, and after some thought he astonished the old fellow by thanking him for his attention and promising to send him a barrel of selected Newtown pippins. Then he placed himself in the hands of the boss artist, who studied him as if he were a model, measured him, and asked him if he needed his dress-suit at once.
“Yes; right away,” said Phil. “I can’t get it too soon. I want——” He had begun to tell that he meant to dress himself in that suit and practise before a mirror until fully satisfied that he did not look unlike other men. The boss artist told him to return in three days; then the old salesman, who had remained in attendance, remarked,—
“You have a thin fall overcoat, I suppose?”