Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/83

 There is my new spring suit too. A beautiful suit it was, and now it is hanging up so bespattered with mud, I can't bear to look at it.

That was Jim's fault, that was. I should never have gone out in it that night, if it had not been for him. I was just trying it on when he came in. He threw up his arms with a wild yell, the moment he caught sight of it, and exclaimed that he had "got 'em again!"

I said: "Does it fit all right behind?"

"Spiffin, old man," he replied. And then he wanted to know if I was coming out.

I said "no," at first, but he overruled me. He said that a man with a suit like that had no right to stop indoors. "Every citizen," said he, "owes a duty to the public. Each one should contribute to the general happiness, as far as lies in his power. Come out, and give the girls a treat."

Jim is slangy. I don't know where he picks it up. It certainly is not from me.

I said: "Do you think it will really please 'em?"

He said it would be like a day in the country to them.

That decided me. It was a lovely evening, and I went.

When I got home, I undressed and rubbed myself down with whisky, put my feet in hot water, and a mustard plaster on my chest, had a basin of gruel