It probably cost four dollars
when it was new. It was ripped, it was frayed, it was napless and
greasy. I could not resist showing him where it was ripped. It so
affected him that I was almost sorry I had done it. First he seemed
plunged into a bottomless abyss of grief. Then he roused himself, made
a feint with his hands as if waving off the pity of a nation, and said
--with what seemed to me a manufactured emotion--"No matter; no matter;
don't mind me; do not bother about it. I can get another."
When he was thoroughly restored, so that he could examine the rip and
command his feelings, he said, ah, now he understood it--his servant must
have done it while dressing him that morning.
His servant! There was something awe-inspiring in effrontery like this.
Nearly every day he interested himself in some article of my clothing.
One would hardly have expected this sort of infatuation in a man who
always wore the same suit, and it a suit that seemed coeval with the
Conquest.
It was an unworthy ambition, perhaps, but I did wish I could make this
man admire something about me or something I did--you would have felt the
same way.
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