“Do you know, it cost me an hour’s argument to get those vests for you because I refused to buy them as singlets and the man wouldn’t sell them as vests. I won in the end because he was getting tired and there were so many people waiting. I think he saw I was serious. But it wasted a fearful lot of time. And now, again, what do you call these?”
“Draws,” said James in one syllable.
“Quite so, that is how I was brought up; but do you realise that the young lady in the shop would not give me anything but ‘knickers’? It made me feel so tweedy, and golfish, and detestable, that I would not buy any.”
“Very silly,” he commented. “Besides, no one plays golf in knickers. It is an impossible word. It sounds like ready-made Fauntleroys for young gentlemen.”
“Thank you a thousand times,” I said, “that is just the word I was looking for. I shall always call them Fauntleroys in future. And now about skirts.”
“What about skirts?” he asked.
“Do you call a skirt a thing that you put on over or under?”
“I call the top one a skirt and the under one a petticoat,” said James, after reflection.
“If you knew anything about haberdashery or outfitting or singlets, or going straight through on the left, you wouldn’t have any petticoats,” I explained. “You would have a skirt—unless you were dressed in tricot or gold-beaters’ skin, which, I believe, is newer—and the thing you wore on the top would be a ‘robe’ or a ‘blouse suit,’ or a ‘costume’ or a ‘trotteuse’ or a ‘cache-corset’ or—oh dear! I am out of breath. I can’t disentangle terms any more.”
“I am afraid your shopping has gone to your head,” said James. “Did you buy anything useful? Did you remember the library carpet and the lawn-mower?”