gain be white and possible, when cleaned and pressed, but a
glance showed that until then they were not to be considered as even
the last resort of desperation. Beside them hung his "last year's summer
suit" of light gray.

Feverishly he brought it forth, threw off his coat, and then--deflected
by another glance at the mirror--began to change his collar again.
This was obviously necessary, and to quicken the process he decided
to straighten the bent collar-button. Using a shoe-horn as a lever,
he succeeded in bringing the little cap or head of the button into its
proper plane, but, unfortunately, his final effort dislodged the cap
from the rod between it and the base, and it flew off malignantly
into space. Here was a calamity; few things are more useless than a
decapitated collar-button, and William had no other. He had made
sure that it was his last before he put it on, that day; also he
had ascertained that there was none in, on, or about his father's
dressing-table. Finally, in the possession of neither William nor his
father was there a shirt with an indigenous collar.

For decades, collar-buttons have been on the hand-me-down shelves of
humor; it is a mistake in the catalogue. They belong to pathos. They
have done harm in the world, and there have been collar-buttons that
failed when the destinies of families hung upon them. There have
been collar-buttons that thwarted proper matings. There have been
collar-buttons that bore last hopes, and, falling to the floor,
NEVER were found! William's broken collar-button was really the only
collar-button in the house, except such as were engaged in serving his
male guests below.

At first he did not realize the extent of his misfortune. How could he?
Fate is always expected to deal its great blows in the grand manner.
But our expectations are fustian spangled with pinchbeck; we look for
tragedy to be theatrical. Meanwhile, every day before our eyes, fate
works on, employing for its instruments the infinitesimal, the ignoble
and the petty--in a word, collar-buttons.

Of course William searched his dressing-table and his father's, although
he had been thoroughly over both once before that day. Next he went
through most of his mother's and Jane's accessories to the
toilette; through trinket-boxes, glove-boxes, hairpin-boxes,
handkerchief-cases--even through sewing-baskets. Utterly he convinced
himself that ladies not only use no collar-buttons, but also never pick
them up