Be-toppered

A small crowd gathers to gaze at the spick-and-span coach, the four stylish bay-browns, the coachman handsomely be-frocked, be-toppered and be-gloved.

Be-toppered men and fashionably dressed women in boxes were focusing binoculars.

Next the first all-metal fuselage Westland Wessex (or “West End Wessex” as it was described in a local paper, conjuring up the picture of a be-toppered pilot in white spats) appeared with a complement of eight passengers on a cruise from Portsmouth, and flew low past the enclosures several times showing the Public one of the machines which is destined to operate the Portsmouth—Ryde Air Ferry as soon as the aerodrome is ready at the latter place.

Of course, the little be-toppered man who hadn’t washed for months was a bigger man than I shall ever be.

ONLY two M.P.s among the early arrivals sported the traditional silk topper when the Commons resumed yesterday after the Easter recess to hear Mr. R. A. Butler, Chancellor of the Exchequer, open his second Budget. The “be-toppered” members were Sir William Darling (C., South Edinburgh) and Mr. Gerald Nabarro (C., Kidderminster).

And proud, not only of her be-toppered husband and kilted son, but of this whole mad, delightful family into which she had married.

Also be-toppered was Rahsaan Rolkand Kirk, whose eccentricity in instrument choice and performing style spread over into how he dressed. Then there was Acker Bilk’s bowler, in which, uniquely, he always looked absolutely right.