And the most notable spots happen mysteriously. They appear out of the air, as it were, like the pictures that frost makes on window panes. I submit the phenomenon of their strange origin to the scientific world as an instance of spontaneous generation.
This spotability of my gray suit is surpassed only by the achievements of my blue serge. (I shall not here discuss my English tweeds, nor my Scotch cheviots, nor the braided cutaway and the lounge suit that I had made for me in Bond Street, for fear the reader might divine that I never possessed those garments.) This suit is not a victim to spots—it deliberately invites them. It is a connoisseur, a discriminating collector.
Scorning such vulgarities as paint and pitch, it seeks the exotic, the outré—amazing stickinesses, bewildering viscosities, undreamed of goos.
Although delighting in intricacy of design and delicate nuances of shading, it prefers durability to all other qualities. Some of its antiques—particularly a brownish white one, resembling an octopus, over the front pocket—have stood the test of time and clothes brushes.
On three occasions this remarkable collection has been almost entirely destroyed by benzine, but each time the principal specimens have survived intact. These cleanings divide the history of the suit into four epochs.
Spots of the fourth (or present) epoch are of small consequence; spots of the third and second epochs are more interesting; while spots which antedate the first great deluge are quite rare. Among these last are the octopus and other gems of the collection.
Once, when I had become exceedingly irked at having to go about clad in pseudo-tapestry, I handed the suit over to a desperado of a ladies' and gents' tailor—a man who had the reputation of being capable of getting anything out of anything or anybody—and besought him to raze the frescoes.
He attacked them after the manner customary to cleaners; that is to say, he drove out the spots with smells. Only, he used smells that were nothing short of brutal. The rout was complete.
When he brought the suit to my room on Saturday night, I could hardly believe my eyes. Being forced, however, to believe my nose, I hastily opened the window. I could understand why the spots had departed. I even felt sorry for them.