But, to return to the clerks, we had a simply awful experience last Christmas. There is a nice old lady for whom we buy a present every year. As she isn't our grandmother—grandmothers are satisfied with any old token of affectionate regard whether it be a postcard or a hot-water bottle—we have to exercise a certain care and judgment. And naturally our knowledge of the personal needs and tastes of old ladies is somewhat limited.
Well, we were standing deep in thought before a shop-window full of fluffy white garments with frills and ribbons, intended for purposes mysterious to bachelor men, when a friend's wife, who occasionally takes a maternal—or perhaps we should say sororal—interest in us, came up and asked us what we were doing there. Her tone suggested that she did not believe our interest to be entirely innocent. But we did not take offence. We told her frankly that we were trying to pick out something that would be suitable as a gift for an old lady.
"But you don't suppose, do you, that a nice old lady would be willing to wear anything in that window?" she asked.
We said we didn't see why not, and that personally we thought that cute-looking garment up there in the corner, with the baby ribbon at the top and the two ruffles around the bottoms, would be just the thing. We spoke in complete guilelessness, but we spent the next ten minutes trying to convince her that we hadn't intended to be objectionable. Will someone please tell us why it isn't all right to talk about a thing that it is all right to display brazenly in a window? If it isn't fit to be mentioned it surely isn't fit to be shown. But you know what women are when they get an idea of that sort in their minds. This one looked us sternly in the eye.
"I don't believe there is any old lady at all," she said, "but if there is and you really want to buy her a present that won't cause her to write and complain to your family when she gets it, why not buy her a hug-me-tight?"
A hug-me-tight!—now that sounded like the very last thing we would have nerve enough to send a lady, no matter how old she was. Besides, we didn't know that a hug-me-tight was a thing one could send. We thought it was something one did. But we are always ready to learn, especially about things that have to do with hugging, figuratively or otherwise—and the more figuratively the better. But, of course, a good deal depends on the figure. So we got a few more directions, and then we walked right into that department-store and accosted a tall superior person in a morning-coat.
"Where do they sell hug-me-tights?" we asked.
"What's that?" he barked at us, in a manner which would have been offensive in anyone but a real silver-mounted "clark."
"A hug-me-tight," we repeated with emphasis, "a woolly business used by old ladies to protect the chest and back against draughts—the kind that come through the window, not out of a bottle."
We thought to cheer him up with this little touch about the "draughts"—mild, you know, but still a pun. Somehow he didn't seem to like it. Perhaps he didn't get it—these toffs often don't. Stately, you know, but a little slow.