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STRANGER: "You would have to wear a top-hat, you know, and you would not like that! But, if you are going to ride like the devil, it might save your neck; and in any case it would keep your hair tidy." It is the first time it has ever been up; and, when I was 'thrown from my horse, as the papers call it, all the hair- pins got loose."
She was confused and embarrassed but pleased too because he seemed glad to see her. He looked the very picture of a well-dressed, kindly, genial friend who had known her all his life. He was wearing a beautifully shining top-hat and his stiff white collar gleamed. Yes, he was glad to see her and he said so. He remembered her name. "Miss Cardinal," he called her. How had she been?
There was a sound of a shot. . . . Something hit Volodya in the back of his head with terrible violence, and he fell on the table with his face downwards among the bottles and glasses. Then he saw his father, as in Mentone, in a top-hat with a wide black band on it, wearing mourning for some lady, suddenly seize him by both hands, and they fell headlong into a very deep, dark pit.
He had got about halfway across Green Park when he became aware of quick footsteps approaching him from behind, and the next moment he was overtaken and accosted by a rather handsome man, irreproachably attired in frock-coat, glossy top-hat, and other garments to match.
Desmond's surmise was right. The old woman ushered in Crook, looking the very pattern of medical respectability, with Harley Street written all over him from the crown of his glossy top-hat to the neat brown spats on his feet. In his hand he carried a small black bag. "Well," he said, surveying Desmond, "and how do we find ourselves to-day? These chills are nasty things to shake off, my dear sir!"
An hour later, in the Floud drawing-room, I had the supreme satisfaction of displaying to Mrs. Effie the happy changes I had been able to effect in my charge. Posing him, I knocked at the door of her chamber. She came at once and drew a long breath as she surveyed him, from varnished boots, spats, and coat to top-hat, which he still wore.
There are plenty of people one could jolly well spare; but you're not among them. So lay that to heart, or I shan't have an easy moment. And then as to personal dignity, if you will excuse my entering into details of costume, in that grey top-hat, grey frock-coat, et cetera, et cetera, you looked more fit for the Ascot Royal Enclosure than for Barnes Common on a broiling August Sunday.
With all his disrobing he had retained his top-hat; he held it in his right hand with the brim pressed against his thigh, very much in the manner of a showman at a circus. It contributed largely to the opulence of his gestures. He always seemed to have concluded and was always starting up afresh, as if in reluctant response to spectral clapping.
Another confiscated the strings of beads from around his neck. A third relieved him of his gaudy loin-cloth, and a fourth tried on the top-hat and omitted to return it. Finally, one of them took his trade-box, which represented three years' toil, and dropped it into a canoe alongside. "That fella belong you?" the captain asked the recruit, referring to the thief. "No belong me," was the answer.
A lady in the old-fashioned riding-habit and a black top-hat with a floating veil recalled a former day, but she was obviously riding to lose weight, in a brief emergence from the past to which she belonged. One man similarly hatted, but frock-coated and not veiled, is scarcely worthy of note; but no doubt he was gratifying an individual preference as distinct as that of the rest.
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