X. A Study in Still Life—My Tailor
He always stands there—and has stood these thirty years—in the back part of his shop, his tape woven about his neck, a smile of welcome on his face, waiting to greet me.
"Something in a serge," he says, "or perhaps in a tweed?"
There are only these two choices open to us. We have had no others for thirty years. It is too late to alter now.
"A serge, yes," continues my tailor, "something in a dark blue, perhaps." He says it with all the gusto of a new idea, as if the thought of dark blue had sprung up as an inspiration. "Mr. Jennings" (this is his assistant), "kindly take down some of those dark blues.
"Ah," he exclaims, "now here is an excellent thing." His manner as he says this is such as to suggest that by sheer good fortune and blind chance he has stumbled upon a thing among a million.
He lifts one knee and drapes the cloth over it, standing upon one leg. He knows that in this attitude it is hard to resist him. Cloth to be appreciated as cloth must be viewed over the bended knee of a tailor with one leg in the air.
My tailor can stand in this way indefinitely, on one leg in a sort of ecstasy, a kind of local paralysis.
"Would that make up well?" I ask him.
"Admirably," he answers.