The New Shoe

He appeared suddenly at the door, sleek and jolly, a friendly flabby hand extended, and announced that he represented a clothes manufacturer which was making a survey of college styles. We took the hand and then made our own survey of its bearer, who was wearing brown--from cordovan shoes to a brown print (very tasteful) tie.

"We're conducting a study in 'reflex motivation,'" he said, and crossing his legs assumed his best professional look. "You know that people all over the country have gone Ivy--Oxford grey, back straps, and button-downs and so forth--and we want to find out what the Ivy League is going to do about it."

"About what?" we asked.

"I mean, what is the Ivy League going to do to keep ahead, to be different? You know, since everyone began to take up the Oxford grey, it's been dropped by the really shoe people. We want to find out what the leaders, the style-setters, are going to come up with next."

We shuffled our sneakered feet and waited.

"Oh, of course, I don't mean what you're wearing now, but if you were trying to impress someone (I don't know what business you're going into) but, say, a publisher--what kind of shirt would you wear?"

We indicated that it would probably be a button-down.

"Why not a tab?" countered he. We didn't know for certain what it was, but we maintained a bold face and returned quicklike, "Too much trouble." He seemed slightly disconcerted, but continued pluckily, "As a newspaperman," (we smirked nervously) "you must be sensitive to the things that other people wear." We began to titter uncontrollably but he went on: "What are the pace-setters wearing?"

We intimated that there didn't seem to be any pacesetters in Cambridge, or at least no one seemed to be keeping any pace, but if such existed they were probably wearing black work-shirts and dark navy sweaters. His interest was reawakened:--"Where do they get them? Some small specialty shop, I suppose. Quite often, a small store will come out with something which catches the buyer's eye; we mass-produce it, and every-one buys. Reflex motivation, you know."

It seemed to us that people got the work-shirts and heavy sweaters at the Army Surplus and that maybe his company might have a hard time out-mass-producing them. He changed the subject to hip pockets. We didn't have much to say on the subject, so he asked about the men in the "social organizations."

"You mean the clubs," we said. "Yes," he said, obviously relieved that at last we were getting somewhere. "What is the best club?" We guessed Porcellian. He asked where it was. We told him where we thought it was, and he started for the door, shuddering as he passed a serene young man wearing a starched shirt, with neither buttons nor tabs. We tried to warn him that he might have trouble getting into Porcellian. But he was already gone.