Behind the Beyond and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge Part 13

The man had evidently got the idea from my naming so many things that I wanted a suit for a fancy dress carnival.

"Fantasy nothing!" I said--"pas de fantaisie! un soot anglais"--here an idea struck me and I tapped myself on the chest--"like this," I said, "comme ceci."

"Bon," said the tailor, now perfectly satisfied, "une fantaisie comme porte monsieur."

Here I got mad.

"Blast you," I said, "this is not a fantaisie. Do you take me for a dragon-fly, or what? Now come, let's get this fantaisie business cleared up. This is what I want"--and here I put my hand on a roll of very quiet grey cloth on the counter.

"Tres bien," said the tailor, "une fantaisie."

I stared at him.

"Is _that_ a fantaisie?"

"Certainement, monsieur."

"Now," I said, "let's go into it further," and I touched 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 n.i.g.g.e.r.

"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, pa.s.sez 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 circ.u.mference, 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, "make it two days."

"Two days and a half, monsieur."

"Two days and a quarter," I said; "give it me the day after to-morrow at three o'clock in the morning."

"Ah, monsieur, ten o'clock."

"Make it ten minutes to ten and it's a go," I said.

"Bon," said the tailor.

He kept his word. I am wearing the fantaisie as I write. For a fantaisie, it is fairly quiet, except that it has three pockets on each side outside, and a rolled back collar suitable for the throat of an opera singer, and as many b.u.t.tons as a harem skirt. Beyond that, it's a first-cla.s.s, steady, reliable, quiet, religious fantaisie, such as any retired French ballet master might be proud to wear.

_II.--The Joys of Philanthropy_

"GOOD-MORNING," said the valet de chambre, as I stepped from my room.

"Good-morning," I answered. "Pray accept twenty-five centimes."

"Good-morning, sir," said the maitre d'hotel, as I pa.s.sed down the corridor, "a lovely morning, sir."

"So lovely," I replied, "that I must at once ask you to accept forty-five centimes on the strength of it."

"A beautiful day, monsieur," said the head waiter, rubbing his hands, "I trust that monsieur has slept well."

"So well," I answered, "that monsieur must absolutely insist on your accepting seventy-five centimes on the spot. Come, don't deny me. This is personal matter. Every time I sleep I simply have to give money away."