of stature, she insisted on his wearing the tallest hat that money
could procure, to the exclusion of all other head-gear; secondly,
on the ground that it looked more "professional," she would allow
him none but black silk neckties; and lastly, she would not let him
smoke. She had further an intense repugnance to all things foreign,
holding as an article of faith that no good thing, whether in art,
cookery, or morals, was to be found on other than English soil.
When Benjamin once, in a rash moment, suggested a trip to Boulogne
by way of summer holiday, the suggestion was received in a manner
that took away his appetite for a week afterward.

The prohibition of smoking Quelch did not much mind; for, having
in his salad days made trial of a cheap cigar, the result somehow
satisfies him that tobacco was not in his line, and he ceased to
yearn for it accordingly. But the tall hat and the black necktie
were constant sources of irritation. He had an idea, based on his
having once won a drawing prize at school, that nature had intended
him for an artist, and he secretly lamented the untoward fate which
had thrown him away upon coals. Now the few artists Benjamin had
chanced to meet affected a soft and slouchy style of head-gear,
and a considerable amount of freedom, generally with a touch of
colour, in the region of the neck. Such, therefore, in the fitness
of things, should have been the hat and such the neck-gear of
Benjamin Quelch, and the veto of his wife only made him yearn for
them the more intensely.

In later years he had been seized with a longing to see Paris. It
chanced that a clerk in the same office, one Peter Flipp, had made
one of a personally conducted party on a visit to the gay city.