Transvestia Franklin, who would have understood, for pinned bundles of new ten franc notes. Then with list in hand, I headed for the area of the women's specialty shops.

Etam is a chain like Lerner's, except that everything is very French. I looked yearningly in the windows, and then went in to a store that has nothing for men.

"Could monsieur be helped?"

"I hope so," I said. "The shipping line has misplaced my wife's luggage, and we must leave immediately. She has nothing to wear and she is very unhappy. So perhaps . . .?"

"But yes, monsieur. She will need everything, no?"

My list has sizes, so it goes very quickly. "Bas-stockings?" "Three pair." "What color?" "This is about the shade she likes." "Soutien-gorge-bra?" "She likes lace - perhaps even more than that one yes, that is more her style it costs more? No matter, if she will be pleased." "Panties (the French word is "slip")? She prefers very frou-frou?” “I think one of these, and one of these, and do you have the garter belts with the ruched garters? Yes, those are just the thing. And she sometimes wears a very small sport girdle - I saw something in the window - it's quite tiny — it stretches. Yes, that's it." In a few minutes my purchases were wrapped and paid for.

"I hope she will be pleased, monsieur."

"I am certain she will, thank you."

Just down the street was the shoe shop of "She Shoemaker Who Knows How To Fit Shoes," another chain store. Here my approach had to be different. These shoes had to fit me, and reasonably comfortably. Leaving the Etam packages in the car, I entered the shoe store. One clerk near the back had no customer, and all the ladies in the store seemed too busy trying on all sorts of fascinating footwear to notice the presence of a stray male. "Excuse me, do you have shoes in my size?”

"But monsieur, we have only women's shoes."

15