At
any rate he guaranteed to cut them away sufficiently to admit of
my breast bone coming out into the open once more.
In a week--about--he called me on the telephone and broke the sad
news to me. My English riding pants would never ride me again.
In using the shears he had made a fatal slip and had irreparably
damaged them in an essential location. However, he said I need
not worry, because it might have been worse; from what he had
already cut out of them he had garnered enough material to make
me a neat outing coat, and by scrimping he thought he might get a
waistcoat to match.
I have my English raincoat; it is still in a virgin state so far
as wearing it is concerned. I may yet wear it and I may not. If
I wear it and you meet me on the street--and we are strangers--you
should experience no great difficulty in recognizing me. Just
start in at almost any spot on the outer orbit and walk round and
round as though you were circling a sideshow tent looking for a
chance to crawl under the canvas and see the curiosities for
nothing; and after a while, if you keep on walking as directed,
you will come to a person with a plain but subsantial face, and
that will be me in my new English raincoat. Then again I may wear
it to a fancy-dress ball sometime. In that case I shall stencil
Pike's Peak or Bust! on the sidebreadth and go as a prairie schooner.
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