bought collars a still small voice told him that the logical foundation
of all things was socks, and that really he had been trying to build a
house from the fourth story downwards. Fortunately he had less
hesitation about the socks, for he could comfort himself with the
thought that socks did not jump to the eye as neckties did, and that by
constant care their violence might even be forever concealed from the
gaze of his household. He sighed with relief at the end of the sock
episode. But he had forgotten braces, as to which he surrendered
unconditionally to the frock-coated judge. He brooked the most
astounding braces, for none but Eve would see them, and he could
intimidate Eve.

"Shall we make you a quarter of a dozen pairs to measure, sir?"

This extraordinary question miraculously restored all Mr. Prohack's
vanished aplomb. That at the end of the greatest war in the history of
the earth, amid decapitated empires and cities of starvation, braces
should be made to measure,--this was too much for Mr. Prohack, who had
not dreamed that braces ever had been made to measure. It shocked him
back into sense.

"_No!_" he said coldly, and soon afterwards left the shop.

Miss Winstock, in the car, sat for the statue of wistful melancholy.

"Heavens!" breathed Mr. Prohack to himself. "The little thing is taking
me seriously. With all her experience of the queer world, and all her
initiative and courage, she is taking me seriously!" He was touched; his
irony became sympathetic, and he thought: "How young the young are!"