A hat worn tilted well back on the head indicates an
open nature and a hail-fellow-well-met disposition; while a hat
decidedly tilted over one eye is the sign of a hard character, and one
not to be trifled with. In the literature of alcoholism it is written
that a common hallucination of the inebriate is that a voice cries
after him: "Where did you get that white hat?" Upon assuming office
the cardinal is said to "take the hat." When a man is conspicuously
active in American political life "his hat is in the ring." Whistler
topped off his press-agent eccentricity with a funny hat. The most
idiosyncratic hat at present in America is that which decorates the
peak of Mr. Bliss Carman. The hat-stands in our swagger hotels make a
great deal of money; I know a gentleman who affirmed that a hat which
had originally cost him three dollars had cost him eighteen dollars to
be got back from hat-checking stands. Cheap people evade the hat-boy.
When the present enthusiast for the splendid subject of hats was a
small boy it was the ambition of every small boy of his acquaintance to
be regarded as of sufficient age to possess what we termed a "dice
hat," what is commonly called a "derby," what in England they call a
"darby," what Dickens aptly referred to as a "pot-hat," what, in one
highly diverting form, is sometimes referred to on the other side as a
"billycock.
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