A time there was, however, when we cherished other notions of journalistic attire. It was when we had first left our alma mater—one's alma mater may be anything from a night-school to five years at Oxford—and had entered on the high mission of moulding public opinion at "twelve per." Then it was our ambition to be Bohemian. We wore very wide-brimmed hats, and low collars with generous openings in front so as to display the Adam's-apple in all its unfettered freedom. We never brushed our clothes, and we kept our hair rather long. We wanted to look like an eager young genius, whose gaze was on far and high things, and who spurned such petty distinctions as are conferred by creases in the front of one's pants.
One night our theory of sumptuary beauty received an awful jolt. The discovery was forced upon us that other people did not see eye to eye with us in the matter of the æsthetics of dress. There was one suit we owned—one of the two, that is—which we hated with a whole-hearted hatred. It was too much even for us. We bought it from a friend who had just gone into the tailoring profession. It was probably his first case, and the operation was not a success—he was nervous, perhaps. The cloth was a heather-mixture—that is what he called it, at any rate, though the color suggested that a number of chameleons had committed suicide on it. The cut was indescribable. The coat was dimly reminiscent of a Roman toga—we had told him to make it loose—and the trousers were obviously modelled on those of Micawber in old illustrated editions of "David Copperfield."
Being unable to afford the relief of throwing the thing away, we tried to get a certain amount of wear out of it under an overcoat. One evening when we were surreptitiously taking it for a walk under a mackintosh, we met an artist friend of ours. He was all muffled up to the throat, as though he, too, were concealing a sartorial mishap.
"Come on over to the Art Gallery," said he, "there are some rather nice things over there—imported."
We like pictures, especially those foreign ones—"Lady with Green Stocking," you know the sort—so we hastened gladly along with our friend, only stopping twice on the way. It was before the advent of Prohibition, and—well, if we had known what we were going to run into at the Art Gallery, we would have had about a quart, neat.
When we reached the place and our friend struggled out of his overcoat, we saw that he was in evening clothes. We were surprised, but thinking he was perhaps saving his business suit—besides, you never can tell how an artist will dress—we said nothing. But when we got into the gallery we understood. It was opening night, private view, by invitation only—the complete formal caper, b' Jove!—and every blessed soul in the place was in full regalia. Every woman present seemed to be "posing for the bust"—that, we believe is the technical phrase—and the gentlemen could be distinguished from waiters only by the wrinkles in their clothes and the faint aroma of camphor and moth-balls.
We would have cut and run if we had been given the chance; but our friend was a hospitable chap. He grabbed us by the arm and dragged us about from picture to picture, while we perspired agony at every pore and everybody in the gallery glared at us as though we were the tattooed man clad only in our illustrations. Art-lovers are supposed to be an unconventional set. If you want to find out how unconventional they are, go to an "opening night" in business clothes, and see!
Finally we made our escape—we pleaded illness or a twisted ankle or something of that sort. We hurried home and as soon as we got there we pitched that suit out of the window. It caught in the branches of a tree where it stayed till the family made us get a ladder and take it down—they said it gave the public the idea that the gentlemen in the house ran around without any clothes on.
We never did wear it again. The very next day we went out and bought a set of open-faced formal clothes. For months afterwards we wouldn't go out for a walk in the evening without them. We didn't feel safe. Mere clothes might be all right for millionaires and geniuses, but sumptuous raiment for ours! We couldn't afford to wear less.
