elop itself for the day.
At length, his mood suggests, imperceptibly, what colour, what form of
clothes he shall wear. He rings for his valet--'I will wear such and
such a coat, such and such a tie; my trousers shall be of this or that
tone; this or that jewel shall be radiant in the folds of my tie.' It is
generally near noon that he reaches the fourth room, the dressing-room.
The uninitiate can hardly realise how impressive is the ceremonial there
enacted. As I write, I can see, in memory, the whole scene--the room,
severely simple, with its lemon walls and deep wardrobes of white wood,
the young fops, philomathestatoi ton neaniskon, ranged upon a long
bench, rapt in wonder, and, in the middle, now sitting, now standing,
negligently, before a long mirror, with a valet at either elbow, Mr. Le
V., our cynosure. There is no haste, no faltering, when once the scheme
of the day's toilet has been set. It is a calm toilet. A flower does not
grow more calmly.

Any of us, any day, may see the gracious figure of Mr. Le V., as he
saunters down the slope of St. James's. Long may the sun irradiate the
surface of his tilted hat! It is comfortable to know that, though he
die to-morrow the world will not lack a most elaborate record of his
foppery. All his life he has kept or, rather, the current valets
have kept for him, a Journal de Toilette. Of this there are now fifty
volumes, each covering the space of a year. Yes, fifty springs have
filled his button-hole with their violets; the snow of fifty winters has
been less white than his linen; his boots have outshone fifty sequences
of summer suns, and the colours of all those autumns have faded in the
dry light of his apparel. The first page of each volume of the Journal
de Toilette bears the signature of Mr. Le V. and of his two valets. Of
the other pages each is given up, as in other diaries, to one day of
the year. In ruled spaces are recorded there the cut and texture of the
suit, the colour of the tie, the form of jewellery that was worn on the
day the page records. No detail is omitted and a separate space is set
aside for 'Remarks.' I remember that I once asked Mr. Le V., half
in jest, what he should wear on the Judgment Day. Seriously, and (I
fancied) with a note of pathos in his voice, he said to me, 'Young man,
you ask me to lay bare my soul to you. If I had been a saint I should
certainly wear a light suit, with a white waistcoat and a flower, but I
am no saint, sir, no sai