The tailor seemed to struggle inwardly for a moment to stop himself bicycling backward in shock and horror. He had not expected five dripping and weather-beaten renegades to invade the sacred precincts of his Gentleman’s Tailor shop. He stayed, as it were oscillating, right there on the carpet, with that tape measure still dangling from his shoulders. Scanning us up and down one by one, he hesitated for a disquieting length of time, his index finger on a dimple in his chin. But then he seemed to make up his mind about something.
‘Very well, sirs and madam. If you’d be so kind as to follow me.’
Was he for real? The paradigmatic tailor-speak took some getting used to. Did Dracopolis have a separate caste of Dandies who spoke like this to distinguish themselves? I couldn’t really read him,
