“I do not at present,” said I, “require a knife with indispensable cheese-scoop and marmalade-shredding attachment.  My indispensable steel mirror with patent lanyard and powder puff for attachment to service revolver is in perfect working order.  I already possess two pairs of marching boots with indispensable trapdoors in each heel containing complete pedicure set and French-Portuguese dictionaries.  My indispensable fur waistcoats, Indian clubs, ponchos, collapsible Turkish baths, steel aprons and folding billiard tables have already brought the weight of my kit nearly up to the allotted thirty-five pounds.  My indispensable cigar cabinet, camouflaged to look like a water-bottle; my patent and absolutely essential convertible gramophone which can be changed at a moment’s notice into a tin hat; my caviare lozenges and shampoo tabloids—­I have them all.  I want a trench-coat and nothing else.”

His face had fallen a little as I spoke.  But it lit up again with a sort of cunning excitement when I said “trench-coat.”  I wondered why—­then.  Now I know.  I thought that he was baffled and would say no more, but I had forgotten the developments of trench warfare.

“This way, Sir,” said the shopman.

He led me to a room which combined the architectural style of the Crystal Palace and Waterloo Station with a touch of the dentist’s waiting-room.  There was a khaki tent in the midst of it, and he led me towards this with the air of a broody hen anticipating the number of her chickens.

“The Vadecumomnibus trench-coat,” said he.

“But it’s a tent,” I protested.

“It has collapsible aluminium centre seam,” he retorted rapidly, “which can be used as a tent pole in severe weather.  On buttoning the top button this pole telescopes automatically and forms a bullet-proof spine protector.  Each sleeve can be unscrewed and used in an emergency as a Lewis gun.  This is indispensable—­”

“Of course,” I interrupted.  “But I require something quite simple and straightforward.  Just a trench-coat, you understand.”

“We have here,” he said immediately, “the Gadget coat.  It possesses three hundred button-holes and three hundred buttons.  Every single portion of the coat can be buttoned on to every other part at a moment’s notice.  The pockets are detachable and can be used as coffee cups or finger bowls.  The coat itself, when stretched on our patent aluminium framework, makes an admirable hip-bath.”

I played nervously in my pocket with the pin of a live Mills grenade (overlooked by the A.M.L.O.).

“A simple, straightforward trench-coat,” I repeated.

“This,” said the shopman, handing me something very like a slice of plum-pudding—­“this is the cross-section of a piece of the cloth out of which our ‘Stopablitey’ trench-coat is manufactured.  It shows the strata of the material, consisting of alternate layers of old motor tyres and reinforced concrete—­the whole covered with alligator skin and proofed with our patent indispensable—­”