already."

Outside she recollects three insuperable objections to the red, and
four unanswerable arguments why she should have selected the grey. She
wonders would they change it, if she went back and asked to see the
shopwalker? Her friend, who wants her lunch, thinks not.

"That is what I hate about shopping," she says. "One never has time to
really THINK."

She says she shan't go to that shop again.

We laugh at her, but are we so very much better? Come, my superior male
friend, have you never stood, amid your wardrobe, undecided whether, in
her eyes, you would appear more imposing, clad in the rough tweed suit
that so admirably displays your broad shoulders; or in the orthodox
black frock, that, after all, is perhaps more suitable to the figure of
a man approaching--let us say, the nine-and-twenties? Or, better still,
why not riding costume? Did we not hear her say how well Jones looked
in his top-boots and breeches, and, "hang it all," we have a better leg
than Jones. What a pity riding-breeches are made so baggy nowadays. Why
is it that male fashions tend more and more to hide the male leg? As
women have become less and less ashamed of theirs, we have become more
and more reticent of ours. Why are the silken hose, the tight-fitting
pantaloons, the neat kneebreeches of our forefathers impossible to-day?
Are we grown more modest--or has there come about a falling off,
rendering concealment advisable?

I can never understand, myself, why women love us. It must be our
honest worth, our sterling merit, that attracts them--certainly not our
appearance, in a pair of tweed "dittos," black angora coat and vest,
stand-up collar, and chimney-pot hat! No, it must be our sheer force of
character that compels their admiration.

What a good time our ancestors must have had was borne in upon me when,
on one occasion, I appeared in character at a fancy dress ball. What I
represented I am unable to say, and I don't particularly care. I only
know it was something military. I also remember that the costume was two
sizes too small for me in the chest, and thereabouts; and three sizes
too large for me in the hat. I padded the hat, and dined in the middle
of the day off a chop and half a glass of soda-water. I have gained
prizes as a boy for mathematics, also for scripture history--not often,
but I have done it. A literary critic, now dead, once praised a book
of mine. I know there have been occasions when my conduct has won the