tHE oTHER mAN iN tHE oTHER hAT*

The man in the hat met another man in a hat, a Papal circlet with a quail’s feather in the hatband and a cross pinned to the brim. He, the man in the hat, asked the other man in the other hat why he chose a hat that looked more like a miter than a common hat, such as the fedora or the panama, or the top hat or the bowler, or the woolen toque, which, he added, is common to knockabout’s and bootblacks. The other man in the hat, the circlet hat with the quail’s feather and cross, said, after clearing his throat through his nose, ‘because I am the king of my kingdom, the fief of my fiefdom, lord and master of my sovereignty’. ‘I see’, said the man in the hat, and continued on down the sidewalk, his gamy leg trebled into his trouser leg, his hat, the gray felt fedora, tied round his chin with a length of child’s string, in case a bluff of wind or a shim of gelling came caroming into his head, or it rained like Noah and Lot, in which case he would affix his rain-cap to his fedora with a scotching of tape and a pin, which he stowed in his pocket just in case such a chance of happenstance were to occur, which it might.