‘Come, come; get him his change, Tod; get him his change.’
Tod retorted: ‘Get him his change! It’s easy to say, sir; but look at
the bill yourself.’
The proprietor took a look, gave a low, eloquent whistle, then made a
dive for the pile of rejected clothing, and began to snatch it this way
and that, talking all the time excitedly, and as if to himself:
‘Sell an eccentric millionaire such an unspeakable suit as that! Tod’s a
fool—a born fool. Always doing something like this. Drives every
millionaire away from this place, because he can’t tell a millionaire
from a tramp, and never could. Ah, here’s the thing I’m after. Please
get those things off, sir, and throw them in the fire. Do me the favour
to put on this shirt and this suit; it’s just the thing, the very
thing—plain, rich, modest, and just ducally nobby; made to order for a
foreign prince—you may know him, sir, his Serene Highness the Hospodar
of Halifax; had to leave it with us and take a mourning-suit because his
mother was going to die—which she didn’t. But that’s all right; we can’t
always have things the way we—that is, the way they—there! trousers all
right, they fit you to a charm, sir; now the waistcoat: aha, right
again! now the coat—lord! look at that, now! Perfect, the whole thing! I
never saw such a triumph in all my experience.’