He wore a scarlet coat of unimaginable vividness, a cutaway coat
of glaring scarlet broadcloth

We thought he might be testing us out as potential spies

And we felt like prize boobs suddenly kidnapped from a tacky party
and dropped into a grand ball

"Well now, sir, you wouldn't be wearing those brown shoes to Lord
Bryce's tea, would you, Mr. White?"




THE MARTIAL ADVENTURES OF HENRY AND ME

CHAPTER I

IN WHICH WE BEGIN OUR SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY


By rights Henry, being the hero of this story, should be introduced
in the first line. But really there isn't so much to say about
Henry--Henry J. Allen for short, as we say in Kansas--Henry J. Allen,
editor and owner of the Wichita Beacon. And to make the dramatis
personae complete, we may consider me as the editor of the Emporia
Gazette, and the two of us as short, fat, bald, middle-aged, inland
Americans, from fresh water colleges in our youth and arrived at
New York by way of an often devious, yet altogether happy route,