Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1896-06-25
MISERY IN a DRESS SUIT.
Wretched Condition OF Gawky Young
Man in Hired Garments.

! Wretched Condition OF q Gawky Young
Man in Hired Garments
He was gawky, sandy and long
necked; he was bow-legGed and timber
| jointed in short, he was a man whom
nature never intended for dress parade,
and he knew it. Only one person be-
sides his wife ever said he was hand
some, and that was spinster who had
had some poems accepted by magazines,
and her opinion was hardly worth the
atmosphere used in expressing it. And
yet, when our friends lodge was to have
u reception, banquet and ball his wife
urged him to wear dress suit. In
moment of groundless vanity he as
sented and rented q full evening dress
outfit. Then his trouble began.
When he tried on the suit at the
clothing store the coat lapels fared
and wrinkled the shoulders. Accord
ingly, the accommodating salesman
pinned the lower corner of the coat
front to the bottom of the vest. The lat
ter garment had an unusually large
opening in front, the whole garment
containing just enough goods to make
a watch guard. When he got the whole
suit on he felt like anything but a hap
Ply man, but the feeling would wear off,
he told himself. 1t never did. When he
bore the precious bundle homeward he
was prouder than many men who
owned dress suits instead of renting
them. ........r . ..a-.
The wife went to the hairdresser,
leaving the husband to the glories of
his dress suit. After violent and man
full struggle he succeeded in getting
into the trousers. He owned no patent
feathers, and his calfslxin shoes with
coat of liquid dressing that refused to
shine over ordinary backing, looked as
If they had been dipped in ink. This
domestic finish" added nothing in the
way of comfort. Then came the shirt.
just az he had got that freshly laun-
| dered garment well adjusted "a cold
perspiration broke out all over the vic.
TINS person as he noticed the narrow
ness of the bosom. A horrid possibility
| he dared not even mentally express
| dawned upon him. But it was the only
clean shirt he owned. Collar and
| three-for-a-quarter white bow were the
| next essentials, and then that dreadful
| horse-collar vest. 1t was as he had
expected! The shirt bosom was two
inches too narrow for the vest opening!
| He at last decided to pull the vest down,
narrowing the vent, and pin the bottom
to the trousers. ct was nearly time to
| go, and the heroic measures were neces-
sary.) But this made the waistband Of
the trousers. peer up over the top button
of that religion-destroying vest. He
shed tears, and would have fain done
likewise with the vest. He put hand
| kerchief there to hide the waistband.
That was better. The coat once on and
duly pinned at the corners, he called at
the hairdresser's for his wife. He was
brave beneath the shelter of his ulster.
| When they arrived at the hall and
separated for the cloak-rooms, all the
pins came out of the patched-up rig
| cling. He fastened in carnation to hide
part of his unlaundried muslin. He
also made the cheering discovery that
in festooning his handkerchief over the
ambitious waistband he had made .
great exhibition of the only dirty spot
| Ou IldI COIUOIl 81 udre. MOTE lce-Waler
perspfration; and he sank into the near
est chair. AS he did so, his vest front
spread, showing three inches of shirt
and a suspender buckle on each side of
that precious shirt bosom. He pulled
the coat lapels together and wanted to
go home. But there sat his wife, with
pretty blue chiffon at neck and sleeves
of her one Sunday dress, her hair nicely
arranged, huge bunch of carnations
on her breast and a peaceful smile on
her face. She looked up, caught sight
Of the funny look of suffering on his
face, and laughed. Then he was mad.
He felt that his wife and dress suit were
conspiring to drive him to drink.
This, dear reader, takes the man only
to nine o'clock in the evening. 1t was
1890 before his wife wanted to go home.
The intervening period is one of agony
too deep to be depicted with pen and ink.
| The next full dress affair he attended
| he wore a pair TO light trousers, sack
coat, sat with his knees crossed and en-
| We'd no man.
He had been man out of his ele-
ment. Under such circumstances all
men are Observation-Disclosures Jour-
nal.