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Mon 14 May, 2012 07:41 pm
There was not a tailor in Gotham who would not have deemed it a precious boon to have been granted the privilege of making Bellchambers' clothes without a cent of pay. As he wore them, they would have been a priceless advertisement. Trousers were his special passion. Here nothing but perfection would he notice. He would have worn a patch as quickly as he would have overlooked a wrinkle. He kept a man in his apartments always busy pressing his ample supply. His friends said that three hours was the limit of time that he would wear these garments without exchanging.
He would have worn a patch as quickly as he would have overlooked a wrinkle. What does it mean?
Actually, it's a passage from O Henry's short story " The robe of peace". I really couldn't understand this sentence. Help me!
@vickie007,
Back in the day, when the maxim was "the clothes make the man" two things were absolutely tabu for a man who wanted to appear well-dressed: (1) unironed or improperly iron clothes (Remember there was as yet no wash-and-wear type fabric available) and (2) clothese that had patches sewn on to cover a tear or a worn spot. For poor people, it was quite common to sew on patches when a coat or a pair of trousers got badly worn in some spot. You didn't throw out a pair of perfectly good pants if you could patch them. But this would never do for anyone who aspired to look like a gentleman.
So the sentence means that he would just as soon wear unironed clothes as patched clothes -- both totally unthinkable conditions.
@Lustig Andrei,
Thanks for your detailed explantion.
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