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Bitter Breakfast.

Thus, dear lady, when your connubial flat-tyre arrives at breakfast with a face like “Storm clouds at Grimsby” and an eye like a hard-boiled snake's egg, remember that he has just completed his matutinal mat-maul with about twenty-four buttons, not to mention a brace of studs as nimble as the jumping bean of Mexico, and a possible pair of cuff-links designed by a Maltese juggler. If he appears to regard the new day as a crime against decency and a threat to the “status quo,” remember that he has prepared himself to face it with as much pain as the Spartans who used to park the palliasse on the rock-garden and bath with a bunch of porcupine quills before lining up for a spot of frightfulness on the “sock” exchange. If he lacks the Stoic restraint of the old Spartans, recollect that the only part of a Spartan that buttoned was his pride.

It seems that men's clothes are part of Adam's punishment. Nature must have said “O.K.! If he will be a sissy and do a sheep out of its overcoat, let's make it as tough as we can for him.” So she bribed the tailors by allowing them to sit on tables (which is something we have all longed to do but have never had the nerve), to inflict men's clothes with a blight of buttons.