fault. This is history, please remember, not fiction. I wanted--I am
obliged to say it--pyjamas for winter wear. I know all about pyjamas
for summer wear; what I wanted was pyjamas for winter wear, and I
decided that Agnes should make them. For years I have been trying to
get proper pyjamas--by which I mean pyjamas properly made--but the
haberdasher always smiles depreciation and tells me that the goods he
offers me are what are always worn. Quite so; but what I say is that
out of bed and for the purpose of having your photograph taken Trade
pyjamas are all right; but that in bed they commit untold offences. I
enter my bed clothed; I settle down in it half-naked. The jacket has
run up to my arm-pits; my legs are bare to the knee; my arms to the
elbows; the loosely buttoned front is ruckled up into a funnel, down
which, whenever I move, the bedclothes like a bellows draw a chill
blast of air on to that particular part of my chest which is designed
for catching colds. When I turn over in my dreams I wake to find
myself tied as with ropes. Slumber's chains have indeed bound me. I am
a man in the clothing of a nightmare. The cold, cold sheets catch me
in the most ticklesome delicacies of my back and make me jump again.
Enough.

"Well," said Agnes, "if I am going to make your pyjamas you must tell
me exactly what you want."

"My pyjamas," I said, "shall be buttoned round the ankle and capacious
below the waist--there I ask a Turkish touch. The jacket shall be
buttoned at the wrists and baggy at the shoulder; at the chest it
shall strap me across like an R.F.C. tunic, and it shall be securely
clipped to the trousers."

"Why not have it all in one?"