ouched another piece
of plain pepper and salt stuff of the kind that is called in the simple
and refined language of my own country, gents' panting.

"This?"

"Une fantaisie," said the French tailor.

"Well," I said, "you've got more imagination than I have."

Then I touched a piece of purple blue that would have been almost too
loud for a Carolina nigger.

"Is this a fantaisie?"

The tailor shrugged his shoulders.

"Ah, non," he said in deprecating tones.

"Tell me," I said, speaking in French, "just exactly what it is you call
a fantasy."

The tailor burst into a perfect paroxysm of French, gesticulating and
waving his tape as he put the sentences over the plate one after
another. It was fast pitching, but I took them every one, and I got him.

What he meant was that any single colour or combination of single
colours--for instance, a pair of sky blue breeches with pink insertion
behind--is not regarded by a French tailor as a fantaisie or fancy. But
any mingled colour, such as the ordinary drab grey of the business man
is a fantaisie of the daintiest kind. To the eye of a Parisian tailor, a
Quakers' meeting is a glittering panorama of fantaisies, whereas a negro
ball at midnight in a yellow room with a band in scarlet, is a plain,
simple scene.

I thanked him. Then I said:

"Measure me, mesurez-moi, passez le tape line autour de moi."

He did it.

I don't know what it is they measure you in, whether in centimetres or
cubic feet or what it is. But the effect is appalling.

The tailor runs his tape round your neck and calls "sixty!" Then he puts
it round the lower part of the back--at the major circumference, you
understand,--and shouts, "a hundred and fifty!"

It sounded a record breaker. I felt that there should have been a burst
of applause. But, to tell the truth, I have friends--quiet sedentary men
in the professoriate--who would easily hit up four or five hundred on
the same scale.

Then came the last item.

"Now," I said, "when will this 'complete' be ready?"

"Ah, monsieur," said the tailor, with winsome softness, "we are very
busy, crushed, ecrases with commands! Give us time, don't hurry us!"

"Well," I said, "how long do you want?"

"Ah, monsieur," he pleaded, "give us four days!"

I never moved an eyelash.

"What!" I said indignantly, "four days! Monstrous! Let me have this
whole complete fantasy in one day or I won't buy it."

"Ah, monsieur, three days?"

"No," I said, "mak