clean, large cuffs very much frayed, a narrow black or white tie, and
low shoes with white cotton stockings.

This black broadcloth coat, by the way, is quite the most interesting
feature of the colonel's costume. So many changes are constantly made
in its general make-up that you never quite believe it is the same
ill-buttoned, shiny garment until you become familiar with its
possibilities.

When the colonel has a funeral or other serious matter on his mind,
this coat is buttoned close up under his chin showing only the upper
edge of his white collar, his gaunt throat and the stray end of a black
cravat. When he is invited to dinner he buttons it lower down, revealing
as well a bit of his plaited shirt, and when it is a wedding this old
stand-by is thrown wide open discovering a stiff, starched, white
waistcoat with ivory buttons and snowy neck-cloth.

These several make-ups used once to surprise me, and I often found
myself insisting that the looseness and grace with which this garment
flapped about the colonel's thin legs was only possible in a brand-new
coat having all the spring and lightness of youth in its seams. I was
always mistaken. I had only to look at the mis-mated buttons and the
raveled edge of the lining fringing the tails. It was the same coat.

The colonel wore to-night the lower-button style with the white tie.
It was indeed the adjustment of this necessary article which had
consumed the five minutes passed in his dressing-room, slightly
lengthened by the time necessary to trim his cuffs--a little nicety
which he rarely overlooked and which it mortified him to forget.