They feature a crimped swallowtail pennant, red above and white below, symbolic of the long plain cloth that was wrapped just below the sharp metal tip for absorbing blood fluid to keep it from running down the shaft and making the lance slippery to hold on to and control.
32.
He wore . . . a plain cloth-suit, which seemed to have been made by a poor tailor; his shirt was plain, and not very clean; and I remember a speck or two of blood upon his collar . . . his face was swollen and red, his voice sharp and untunable, and his speech full of passion.
33.
Wherever his thoughts took him, though, he was preoccupied with achieving the seemingly impossible out of plain cloth and sea " Designing is an architectural problem, " he told The New York Times in 1991 . " You are faced with a piece of crepe or wool, the flattest thing in the world, and you have to mold it to the shape you want.
