me look smart,--do you think it
can be managed?" He smiled in his irresistible way, and St. Maur had to
laugh too. "You evidently think it quite impossible," he added.

"No, not at all, you ass!" St. Maur objected. "I'm always telling you
that you can look the smartest man in England if you choose. You fellows
who are habitually dowdy create a most tremendous effect when, for once,
you really dress in a rational fashion."

Lord Henry scratched his head and glanced dubiously down at his clothes
again.

"I suppose these would do," he said.

St. Maur expostulated with scorn. "Where are all your things? You've got
some presentable clothes, only you never wear them; or if you do, you
wear the wrong ties or the wrong shirts, or the wrong socks with them."

"Have you got your crow's nest here?" Lord Henry demanded.

St. Maur nodded.

"Drive me to the cottage, then," said the elder man, throwing out his
arms dramatically, "and get me up to kill!"

St. Maur was interested, and showed it in his glance.

"Don't be alarmed, dear boy," said Lord Henry. "I may have to play a
part down at Brineweald."

St. Maur did as he was bid, and the two spent about an hour and a half
in Lord Henry's bedroom, sorting out ties, collars, shirts, lounge
suits, dress clothes, and boots and shoes.

At last Lord Henry was clothed, and, as St. Maur had truthfully
prophesied, looked the very paragon of a well-dressed man. Indeed, not
only was the contrast with his usual self so bewildering as to banish
all sense of proportion in estimating the splendour of his
transformation but the singular nobility of his face, with its wise,
youthful brow and deep, thoughtful eyes, also added such a curious
piquancy to his fashionable attire, that the general effect was little
short of startling. It is always so. Dress your scholar, your thinker,
your poet, in clothes that Saville Row has carefully designed and
carried out for a Society peacock, and the result is not a member of the
_phasianidae_, but a golden eagle. It is as if the art of the tailor or
shirt maker were grateful for once to adorn something more than a mere
dandy. That depth of the eye, that wise and learned mouth, those
intelligent and almost understanding hands, the noble studious
brow,--all these embellishments added to the figure of the ordinary man,
give a certain finish to well-made garments, which these in their turn
impart to the aspect of the scholar; and the result is an effect o