Читать книгу An Affair of State онлайн

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Jeff bought a new suit. It was a two-button blue pin stripe, a lounge that was being worn that year by all the successful young men, like Charles Luckman, Bob Considine, Richard Kollmar, and Fred Keller. He paid ninety-five dollars for it, which was more than he had ever paid for a suit before. He also bought black socks, and three white shirts with button-down collars--although his shirt drawer was full--and six handkerchiefs of the best linen that cost as much as shirts used to cost before the war, and a maroon tie that announced itself as at once restrained and expensive.

As an afterthought he bought a hat. He rebelled against hats. He had had to wear a cap as a freshman at Princeton, and he had been compelled to wear either a helmet or a go-to-hell cap during his years in the Army. Hats seemed to him a symbol of compulsion and conformity, and he had not worn one since he had been home. He selected a black homburg, size seven and a quarter. The clerk approved. As he wrote a check the clerk said, "You're in the State Department, aren't you, sir? When you outfit yourself for going abroad, we'll be glad to take care of you."