"No?" said Karl.
"Why, Karl," said Shears, "I thought you'd change; thought you'd look different, somehow! Yes, sir, I thought you'd look different—but, I swan, you don't!"
"No," said Karl, and there was such honest chagrin in the faces of those old-time friends, he was discomfited. What had they expected, he asked at home?
"Why," said his mother, "don't you know? Can't you guess, my dear? They looked at least for a Prince-Albert and a stove-pipe hat."
"Silk hat! Prince-Albert!"
"Why, yes," said his father. "The outward and visible sign of the soul within."
Karl's clothes, it is true, were scarcely the garb to be hoped for in so marked a man. The dandies of Grassy Ford noted complacently that his plain, gray, wrinkled suit did not compare for style and newness with their own, while they wore at their throats the latest cravats of emerald and purple loveliness. Karl's tie was black, and a plain and pinless bow which drooped dejectedly. His hat was a mere soft, weather-beaten, shapeless thing, and he walked on Sunday with gloveless hands. Miss Johnson, a reigning belle, tells how he once escorted her from the post-office to her father's gate, talking of Wordsworth all the way, and all unconscious of the Sun Dial burrs still clinging to his coat!
Letitia, for one, declared that she was not disappointed in the author of Sleepington Fair. In honor of her old pupil she gave a dinner, and spent such thought upon its menu and took such pains with its service, lest it should offend a New-Yorker's epicurean eye, it is remembered still, and not merely because it was the only literary dinner Grassy Ford has known. There was some agitation among the invited guests as to the formality involved in a dinner to a lion—even though that lion might be seen commonly with burrs in his tail. The pride and honor of Grassy Ford was at stake, and the matter was the more important as the worthy fathers of the town seldom owned dress-suits in those days. For a time, I believe, when I was a boy, Mr. Jewell, the banker, was the sole possessor, and became thereby, no less than by virtue of the manners which accompany the occasional wearing of so suave a garment in so small a town—our first real gentleman. In his case, however, the ownership was the less surprising in that he was known to enjoy New York connections, on his mother's side.
Now, to those who consulted Letitia as to the precise demands of the approaching feast, she explained, gracefully, that they would be welcome in any dress—adding, however, for the gentlemen's benefit, and hopefully no doubt, for she had the occasion in heart and hand, that the conventional garb after six o'clock was a coat with tails. As a result of the conference two guests-to-be might have been seen through a tailor's window, standing coatless and erect upon a soap-box, much straighter than it was their wont to stand, much fuller of chest, robin-like, and with hips thrown neatly back—to match, as the Colonel said. Two other gentlemen of the dinner-party told their wives bluntly that they would go "as usual," or they would be—not go at all, before which edicts their dames salaamed.