these dinners?" he decided to begin.

She aimed a toothy smile straight at him. Hubert had never noticed how
unusually fat she was before, and tried hard not to seem as though he
had observed it now. He looked doggedly at her light yellow hair, and
then looked down again when he saw that it was not real.

"I'm not a Kit Kat, you know, Mr. Hubert Brett," she answered coyly.
"They meet every Tuesday, but we ladies are only asked when there is
some special attraction, so you see you should feel very honoured! I
find it most interesting" (she laid the accent upon the third
syllable), "because you see, my brother is a book reviewer, so I
naturally take a special interest."

"Naturally," answered Hubert.

"We always say," she went on, very animated, "just for a joke, you
know, only among ourselves, that the Kit Kats have a far gayer time
when we ladies are not admitted: we see them on their best behaviour!"

"Yes?" Hubert said absently, forgetting to smile or to live up in any
way to this pet joke amongst the ladies. He was thinking. "What does
your brother review for?" he enquired as a result.

The big lady looked on him a little sternly, not at all sure whether he
had not intended to be rude. He had been very short with her
pleasantry, and now was he doubting about Harold? He ought to know the
name.

"For several books," she said with dignity, and turned to the man on
her other side, who might not be a famous author but was the Mayor's
cousin and far less stuck-up.

Hubert knew that he had failed, and his other neighbour proved
unhappily to be deaf on the near side. He spent the rest of a long and
essentially British meal in trying to appease the critic's sister. It
was all rather difficult, and he was glad now that he had told the
President he must leave early, as his wife was nervous and he had a
long way to go. He could escape a little before half-past nine and
they would be much happier without him. He wished now that he had
refused the whole thing. Still, it _was_ something to be chosen as the
guest of honour....

And, indeed, when all the meal had gone except its odour and the
President had facetiously announced that the ladies might now smoke, it
proved to be a very big thing indeed to be the Kit Kats' guest of
honour.

Even Hubert Brett's tried capacity for absorbing flattery was strained
when Mr. President, as everybody called him always, spoke minute after
minute in praise of his books: re