“How about the one I bought in England?”
“That heavy woolen suit? If you wore that on a summer day, the perspiration would stream down your face!”
“Well,” I ventured, “mightn’t they think it proper for a Socialist to wear old clothes? Mightn’t I be pathetic——”
Said M. C. S. “They don’t want anybody around who is not well dressed. It’s depressing. You must have a new suit.”
“But—we just haven’t the money to spare.”
“You can get a Palm Beach suit for ten dollars.”
“Isn’t that rather festive? I never wore anything like it.”
“Idiot! Papa wears them all the time.”
Now “papa,” you must understand, is—well, what “papa” does is the standard. So it was arranged that I should go into Los Angeles an hour or two earlier in the morning, and provide myself with a Palm Beach suit and pair of white shoes for two dollars. “They will be made of paper,” said my wife, “but you won’t have far to walk, and they’ll do for other lectures.”
M. C. S. does not go with me on these adventures, having not been well since the Colorado excitement. She stays at home and mends socks and writes sonnets, while I administer shocks to the leisure-class ladies. Her last injunction was a hair-cut. “The day of long-haired geniuses is past. Promise me you’ll have your hair cut.”