A SORE TROUBLE.
THERE is nothing flat and monotonous about a broken lining to a coat-sleeve.
It always comes up as fresh and vivacious as at the first. A man appears
about as surprised when he runs his hand into the slit the tenth time as
he did the first; and when he looks to see his hand appear at the end, and
finds that it is doubled up in the middle of the sleeve, his countenance
will assume as much interest as if the occurrence was something never before
heard of. It is astonishing, in this connection, that a broken sleeve-lining
rarely happens in the right sleeve. This is because, perhaps, that the right
arm is first inserted. A broken sleeve-lining can only appear to advantage
in one position; and that is when the man has one arm inserted correctly,
the coat in a wad against the back of his head, and his body bent over in
the effort to shove the remaining arm through. It is at this, the most painful
juncture, that his attention is called to the rent lining. In a constrained
voice he directs the notice of his wife to the same, with a partly stifled
inquiry as to what on earth she has been doing, that the trouble has not
been remedied
before. It is like a woman on such an occasion to say that
he won't leave his coat home so that it can be fixed. It takes a woman to
think of exasperating things. The only resort now left to him is to declare
that he knows better. Then she says, if he will take the coat off now, she
will fix it, and makes a show of getting a thread and needle. She knows he
won't take it off and wait. And he don't. A man may have a broken sleeve-lining,
and a slit in his trousers, as long as fifteen minutes at a railway station;
but he knows the propriety of things.
