Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/211

vorticist patterns of brown and purple. He tore off the dark gray tie he had on and substituted the gaudy new one.

At the next corner he passed a shoe-shop. He hesitated a moment at the plate-glass window, then he entered and glared at the brisk young puppet who came forward with a smirk. He displayed his elastic-sided boots of the floorwalker type (which he had worn for years on account of his corns) and asked to have them removed. When they were off his feet he threw them to the other end of the long, narrow room. "I want some russet shoes with cloth tops," he said. "And some silk socks to match, the kind the men wear in the magazine ads."

When he left the shop, his feet might have been taken for those of Charley Chaplin, or of an assistant advertising manager of a department store.

Mr. Veal reached his office nearly two hours late, and one of his office boys was instantly discharged for asking him whom he wanted to see. Indeed, in a new suit of violent black-and-white checks, and with a crush hat of velvety substance, he was almost unrecognizable. As he passed through the filing department a hush fell over the young ladies there. His secretary, looking nervously