A reproof so courteously prefaced I could not take offence at; and at
that time I resolved to spend some cost upon decorating my person. But
always it happened that some book, or set of books,--that passion being
absolutely endless, and inexorable as the grave,--stepped between me
and my intentions; until one day, upon arranging my toilet hastily
before dinner, I suddenly made the discovery that I had no waistcoat
(or _vest_, as it is now called, through conceit or provincialism),
which was not torn or otherwise dilapidated; whereupon, buttoning up my
coat to the throat, and drawing my gown as close about me as possible,
I went into the public "hall" (so is called in Oxford the public
eating-room) with no misgiving. However, I was detected; for a
grave man, with a superlatively grave countenance, who happened on
that day to sit next me, but whom I did not personally know, addressing
his friend sitting opposite, begged to know if he had seen the last
Gazette, because he understood that it contained an order in council
laying an interdict upon the future use of waistcoats. His friend
replied, with the same perfect gravity, that it was a great
satisfaction to his mind that his majesty's government should have
issued so sensible an order; which he trusted would be soon followed up
by an interdict on breeches, they being still more disagreeable to pay
for. This said, without the movement on either side of a single muscle,
the two gentlemen passed to other subjects; and I inferred, upon the
whole, that, having detected my manoeuvre, they wished to put me on my
guard in the only way open to them. At any rate, this was the sole
personality, or equivocal allusion of any sort, which ever met my ear
during the years that I asserted my right to be as poor as I chose.
And, certainly, my censors were right, whatever were the temper in
which they spoke, kind or unkind; for a little extra care in the use of
clothes will always, under almost any extremity of poverty, pay for so