Clothes Make the Man

In high school, short stories abounded. I think in 9th grade it was de rigueur. Of the stories I remember were Guy du Maupassant's The Necklace and Clothes Make the Man. For x-number of years, I have attributed the latter to Guy also but have never found it.

So today the librarian and I are discussing books and stories as I'm labeling our older/rarer books for the used book sale with prices more in line with their value than a dollar per hardback. And I tell her of my quest. And she has the nerve to google it and voila! there it is: a short story by Henri Duvernois.

Right title, wrong author.

So in this short story, a gang of thieves is about their thieving, but one of them has to dress as a policeman. Pretty soon, he's acting as a policeman because he's getting the respect due a policeman.

Clothes have, indeed, made the man.

Dress the part. Act the part. Should be easy to remember. And to think I learned that at 14.