COTTON WAS friendly to him, wool was not. When he was a child the male bathing suit had a small skirt, rose in the form of an undershirt over the shoulders and under the arms, and was made of wool. The feel of wet wool drying against his body was uncomfortable, and he would have gone to his bungalow to shower and change if the custom had not been to stay on the beach after swimming. Also, if he left he might miss a clamshell-scaling contest, the construction of a gravity sand course for rubber balls, a couple necking behind a downed umbrella, or any of a number of chance pleasures of the beach. In winter, woolen trousers bothered him, and if he dribbled down the side of his leg after urinating they bothered him almost as much as a wet wool bathing suit. Since he got only one new suit of clothes a year, usually before Easter, it was important to choose a smooth weave. Occasionally he would be seduced by the manly look of a rough texture and suffer for it. One morning when he was twelve he dressed before he was completely awake and mistakenly pulled his pants over his pajama bottoms. He left both garments on for the rest of the day and wore pajama bottoms for years afterwards whenever his suits were rough. Once at a party, when he was fifteen and the other guests were older, he bunched his trouser legs around his thighs, exposing the pajamas; then he stuffed a pillow under his jacket, screwed up his face, and bounded from room to room like a mad hunchback. The act was a great hit, and because he would not explain the presence of the pajamas he got a reputation as engagingly eccentric and thereby gained full admission to the group. Something of the same thing happened in the army. The winter uniform provided a rough wool shirt, which an undershirt only partially protected him from. Out of desperation he cut the collar and cuffs from a summer cotton shirt and wore it under the wool shirt. This amused the other soldiers, and their amusement made it easier for him to hide the fact that he did not like them. After the war his father began wearing drip-dry shirts and gave him fifty white cotton shirts with French cuffs and detachable collars. The ritual of affixing cuff links and collar buttons pleased him for a while, and occasionally he would reverse the detachable collar and imitate a clergyman; but one morning on his way to work his collar rode away from the shirt, which had happened before. He went into a clothing store, bought a drip-dry shirt, and changed into it at his office. That evening he threw away all his father’s shirts and collars, clean and soiled. When the laundry came back the following Saturday he threw away as well the shirts that it contained. The collar buttons, although fourteen-carat gold, he tossed from an open window. Each night he washed the drip-dry shirt and wore it the next day. Eventually it turned yellow. He abandoned it and ordered two dozen button-down cotton shirts, replacing them as they wore out. Of all his clothes he most enjoyed a checked sports jacket he bought on sale for nineteen dollars at the university shop of a stylish men’s store. One day an elegantly dressed man stopped him on the street and asked where he had gotten it. He later wondered if the man was homosexual. He wore the jacket for twelve years, until the armpits rotted. As modes change he takes more pride in the old-fashioned wing-tipped style of his shoes, which he buys at sales in an expensive English shoe shop. Shoemakers comment on their quality when he has them repaired. He wears double-ply black nylon stretch socks, which seem to last forever but eventually get stiff. He will buy a modified double-breasted pinstriped suit, and it will bring him many compliments. You should wear nothing but double-breasted, he will be told; but before long he will put on weight and return to single-breasted styles and even pleated trousers. For a birthday in his late fifties he will give himself the present of replacing all his ties. He will tell his older daughter what he did, and she will be offended because a month before she gave him one of the ties he throws away. In his fifties too he will again wear pajamas at night—in the army he had lost the habit—and they will be a comfort to him, reminding him of his childhood. As his hair thins he will search for a comfortable hat, not to warm his head but to keep the longer hairs in place. No hat will be acceptable, however. In his sixties he will purchase shoes two pairs at a time. His father had done the same thing when his father was sixty, as a guarantee against death. Suits he will continue to buy singly, except on one occasion when he will buy two, a sporty herringbone (“The older the bird the brighter the plumage,” he will say to the salesman) and the other dark blue.