"A craving to settle lingering doubts as to my right to be there."
The minor matter of dress is frequently the cause of emergency calls for help from embarrassed lyceumites, and to get out of predicaments in which mistakes of packing under the pressure of hurry place us sometimes taxes our resources to the uttermost. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once told me of an amusing complication along these lines by which he was confronted in a New Jersey community, whither he had gone to dine with and address the students of a famous school.
On his arrival at the scene of action Dr. Doyle, as he was then known, discovered to his dismay that in the hurried packing of his suitcase he had forgotten to put in his evening coat. Everything else was there; but his swallowtail was missing. Now Sir Arthur is not only a distinguished novelist and story writer, but is a particularly punctilious and tactfully courteous gentleman as well; and, having heard stories of other Britons coming to this country and attending functions given in their honor in tweeds, as if we Americans knew nothing of the niceties of dress, was careful always to avoid giving offense himself by similar vagaries. So, rather than seem contemptuous of the conventionalities on this occasion, the doctor pleaded a headache as his excuse for not appearing at dinner, and in the interval of time thus gained transformed his blue serge traveling coat into a perfectly good dinner jacket, or Tuxedo, as some do call it, with properly rolling lapels, by cutting off the buttons and rolling the front of his coat back into a broad lapel effect; pressing the resulting garment into stayable shape by putting it between the mattresses of his bed, and lying on them for an hour.
I cannot say that I have ever found myself master of any such wonderful ingenuity when face to face with a similar predicament; but in Austin, Texas, two years ago I suffered from a condition that for the time being seemed quite as poignantly distressing.
My trunk had been despatched from San Antonio to Houston, and I was "living in my suitcase." With only twenty-five minutes to spare before I was due upon the platform, I found myself without shirt studs, and at the moment without anything at hand to use as an acceptable substitute. A hurried visit to the main street and some of its tributaries divulged nothing in the nature of a haberdashery or a jeweler's shop that had not been closed for the night.
I was in a terrific quandary; but the Only Muse, always a resourceful person, reminded me of Oliver Herford's expedient many years before in using in a similar emergency a set of brass-headed manuscript fasteners. Fortunately I had with me several bits of manuscript that were held together by these useful little contrivances—small pieces of metal with shining brass caps, backed by flexible flanges to hold the caps in place. These were inserted in the buttonholes of my shirt in most satisfactory fashion, and in a few moments as far as externals were concerned I presented as goodly an appearance as any man rejoicing in the effulgent glory of three lustrously golden studs.
With a sigh of relief I then turned to put on my white waistcoat, only to discover, alas! that that too was missing, nor was there any sign anywhere of any other kind of vest that could do duty convincingly, or even acceptably, with a claw-hammer coat. Again I flew precipitately down the stairs, this time to the kindly room clerk in the hotel office. I explained my predicament to him in a few well chosen words, ending up with:
"Haven't you a white vest you can lend me?"
"Certainly I have," said he, and together we repaired to his room in quest of the needed garment. He soon found it, and I returned rejoicing to my room, the treasure hugged tightly to my breast; but when I came to try it on I discovered, what I had overlooked in the agitation of the moment, that as eight is to thirty-two, so was the room clerk's façade to mine! I could get into the vest; but no compressor ever yet invented could so adjust my physical proportions to the garment that it would come within four inches of meeting in front.