Incontinent I lifted the latch and entered the shop to behold a stout
young gentleman contorting himself horribly in a vain endeavour to
regard the small of his back.
"There!" he gasped. "The breeches! Told you they were too tight--I
heard 'em crack--they're too infernal tight, I tell ye!"
"Oh, dear me, impossible, sir!" sighed a pale, long-visaged person,
flourishing a tape-measure. "A gent's breeches can't be too tight; the
tighter they are the more _ton_! Indeed, tight breeches, sir,
are--What's for you, my lad?" he enquired, catching sight of me.
"I desire to purchase a suit of clothes."
"Oh, dear me--no, no!" sighed the long-visaged person. "Not here, lad,
not here! We build garments for gentlemen only, no ready-made goods
here; we deal strictly with the nobility and gentry of the county--go
away, lad, go away!" Here he flapped his tape-measure at me, the stout
gentleman stared at me, and I crept forth into the street again among
the dainty, sprigged gowns and high-collared coats amid which I
wandered somewhat disconsolate until by chance my wandering gaze
lighted upon a small, dingy shop in whose narrow window squatted a
small, humpbacked, bespectacled man plying needle and thread with
remarkable speed and dexterity. It was a small shop but so stuffed and
crammed with garments of all kinds that they had overflowed into the
street, for the narrow doorway was draped, choked and festooned with
coats, breeches, pantaloons, shirts, waistcoats, stockings, boots,
shoes, a riotous and apparently inextricable tangle.
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