er disappointed that it should fall to pieces. Mr. Unthank
pointed out to me on the Lake of Como that my dressing-gown which I
always wear travelling is out at elbows which indeed I find it is but
that fact seemed to grieve Mr. Unthank less than the shabbiness of my
hat and he offered to give me a new one that is a wideawake of his
own which had been newly lined and not worn as he said since it was
lined if I would throw my old wideawake away. I consented but I left
Milan before he had an opportunity of performing his promise.

"It was kind of your father's friend to offer him his old hat; don't you
think so?"

"Yes, very kind of him. But, you see, he had his reasons."

"Of course, he did not want to be seen with anyone so badly dressed."

"That is what he says in his letter to the _Times_. I copied that in the
British Museum. He does not mention my father by name, he merely speaks
of well-dressed Englishmen in Paris (by which he means people like
himself) frequently seeing a respectable professional man disguised as an
omnibus conductor or cab-driver and 'being compelled to stand talking
with a vulgar-looking object because they have unfortunately recognised
an old acquaintance and not had time to run across the road to avoid
him.' My father, no doubt, thought of Mr. Unthank's conversations with
him at Como and Milan and said to himself, 'That's me.' The cap fitted
him and he put it on."

"Excuse me; your father cannot have put the cap on, he says he had to
leave Milan too soon for that."

"O my dear Buffo, I am so sorry. When I said the cap, I did not mean the
wideawake, I was only using an English idiom."

"I see, I understand. We also have a similar expression, but it is not
about hats, it is about boots, I think, or coats. I will find out and
tell you."

"My father does not say he 'had to leave'; he only says he left; and my
mother, who agreed with his friends and thought his taste in dress
deplorable, believed that he ran away to escape from Mr. Unthank's hat."

"Oh! but a hat is always worth something. I should have waited for the
hat. Was it really a very bad one?"

"I do not remember it, I should think it must have been pretty bad. The
dressing-gown was awful. It was maroon, and his friends called it his
wife's mantle. After he left off wearing it, it was given to us children
for dressing up. It was no use for anything else and it was not much use
for that.