Then the cape of the overcoat was called upon to assist in repairing these continually-recurring breaches in the nether garments.

The same insatiate demand finally consumed the whole coat, in a vain attempt to prevent an exposure of person greater than consistent with the usages of society.

The pantaloons--or what, by courtesy, I called such, were a monument of careful and ingenious, but hopeless, patching, that should have called forth the admiration of a Florentine artist in mosaic.
I have been shown--in later years--many table tops, ornamented in marquetry, inlaid with thousands of little bits of wood, cunningly arranged, and patiently joined together.

I always look at them with interest, for I know the work spent upon them: I remember my Andersonville pantaloons.
The clothing upon the upper part of my body had been reduced to the remains of a knit undershirt.

It had fallen into so many holes that it looked like the coarse "riddles" through which ashes and gravel are sifted.