"Yes, sir."

The shop was all waxed parquetry, silks, satins, pure linen and pure
wool, diversified by a few walking-sticks and a cuff link or so. Faced
by a judge-like middle-aged authority in a frock-coat, Mr. Prohack
suddenly lost the magisterial demeanour which he had exhibited to a
defenceless girl in the car. He comprehended in a flash that suits of
clothes were a detail in the existence of an idle man and that neckties
and similar supremacies alone mattered.

"I want a necktie," he began gently.

"Certainly, sir," said the judge. But the judge's eyes, fixed on Mr.
Prohack's neck, said: "I should just think you did."

Life was enlarged to a bewildering, a maddening maze of neckties. Mr.
Prohack considered in his heart that one of the needs of the day was an
encyclopaedia of neckties. As he bought neckties he felt as foolish as a
woman buying cigars. Any idiot could buy a suit, but neckties baffled
the intelligence of the Terror of the departments, though he had worn
something in the nature of a necktie for forty years. The neckties which
he bought inspired him with fear--the fear lest he might lack the
courage to wear them. In a nightmare he saw himself putting them on in
his bedroom and proceeding downstairs to breakfast, and then,
panic-stricken, rushing back to the bedroom to change into one of his
old neckties.

And when he had bought neckties he apprehended that neckties without
shirts were like butter without bread, and he bought shirts. And then he
surmised that shirts without collars would be indecent. And when he had