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      “Can’t find a b’dashed shirt.”
      “They’re all down here.”
      “Then fetch ’em up and be spry.”
      “Come down and get ’em, yourself.”
      “Huh?"
      “I’ve got a little surprise for you.” Still sweetly but with an undertone of decisiveness. When that note sounded, time was saved, as he had long since discovered, by meeting her wishes. He descended.
[52]
      As he reached the stairfoot, she was there with the required garment in her hands.
      “The red cambric, you said. Here it is.” She held out the fresh shirt toward him. “Arms.”
      Bowing his head and stretching out his arms, he felt the cool fabric slip into place. His fingers fumbled at the neckband. An expression of bewilderment clouded his features.
      “What the devil’s this?”
      “Don’t curse, dear.”
      “Wh-wh-where’s the collar?”
      “All ready.” She held up the doubled and starched ringt before his goggling eyes.
      “What happened to it?”
      “I cut it off.”
      “Cut it — b’dashed and b’damned. What for, woman?”
      “To make the wash easier.”
      “Then you b’dashed and b’damned well put it back on again.”
      “You put it on,” she returned, still mildly.
      “How’ll I put it on?”
      “Tie it.”
      “Tie it to what, you — you puttering jezabeel?”
      The time had come for assertion and defiance. “Tie it to your ass’s ears for all I care. And please not to use ignominious language to your lawfully wedded wife.”
      He snatched off the shirt, flung it in a corner, and tossed the detached strip after it. “Fetch me another.”
      “Go into the washery and pick on out. They’re all the same.”
      Mr. Montague uttered the roar of a goaded bull. “You've gone zany!”
      “If you let your gorge rise like that you’ll have a cachexy and I shall call Dr. Armitage to bleed you.”
      Retrieving the discarded garment, she smoothed out the two strips of tape appended at the rear, held the collar in place and deftly attached it through the accommodating apertures which he had failed to observe.
      “Now, come here,” she coaxed.
      Mr. Montague sidled and stamped and spluttered.
      “It won’t do a bit of good to prance,” she told him placidly. “Turn around.”
[53]
      Slipping the shirt upon his indignantly panting torso again, she affixed the collar at the front and tied a neat bow.
      “Look at yourself.” She propelled him gently before the wallglass. "There! Isn’t that pompous!” she cooed.
      “Um-mm-mm!” he grunted, craning. “Hah!” He waggled his head like a duck, easing his Adam’s apple into place with a careful forefiner. Privately, he was filled with admiration for her ingenuity, but too much praise was apt to set a woman above herself.

—

ex Samuel Hopkins Adams, Sunrise to Sunset (1950) : 52
borrowable at archive.org : link
 

above, front and back covers, Bantam Giant A1107 (first printing, April 1953)
 

The quoted passage regards the invention of the detachable collar ca 1827; see wikipedia for details.

Samuel Hopkins Adams (1871-1958), investigative journalist, muckracker, and novelist; wrote “risqué” novels under the pseudonym of Warner Fabian
wikipedia : link

The word “puttering” appears in several of his books; those instances will be referenced in due course.
 

19 May 2026