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thing to see, and a very tragic thing to do.
I began saving up every penny and nickel and dime I could get
hold of, and I began biding my time. Some day I would go down to the
store and tell them I would like to buy a pair of the Spanish bell-
bottomed pants, price no consideration.
A mournful year went by. A year of philosophy and hatred of
man.
I was saving the pennies and nickels and dimes, and in time I
would have my own pair of Spanish style corduroy pants. I would have
covering and security and at the same time a garment…
Well, I saved up enough money all right, and I went down to the
store all right, and I bought a pair of the Spanish bell-bottomed corduroy
pants all right, but a month later when school opened and I went to
school I was the only boy at school in this particular style of corduroy
pants. It seems the Spanish renaissance had ended. The new style
corduroy pants were very conservative, no bell-bottoms, no five-inch
waists, no decorations. Just simple ordinary corduroy pants.
How could I feel gay and lighthearted? I didn't look gay and
lighthearted. And that made everything worse, because my pants did
look gay and lighthearted. My own pants. Which I had bought. They
looked gay and lighthearted. It meant simply, I reasoned, that I would
have to be, in everything I did, as gay and lighthearted as my pants.
Otherwise, naturally, there could never be any order in the world. I could
not go to school in such pants and not be gay and lighthearted, so I
decided to be gay and lighthearted. I was very witty at every opportunity
and had my ears boxed, and I laughed very often and discovered that
invariably when I laughed nobody else did.
This was agony of the worst kind, so I quit school. I am sure I
should not now be the philosopher I am if it were not for the trouble I
had with Spanish bell-bottomed corduroy pants.

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