e the kind of chap who
can put on a turned-down collar with your evening clothes, or a tie
that's been twisted through a wringer, and not look ridiculous. It's the
rest of us that seem fops because we're properly dressed."

"I'd prefer to wear the right thing, you know," I returned, crestfallen.

"You never will. Anybody might as well expect a mountain to put forth
rose-bushes instead of pine. It suits you, somehow, like your hair,
which would make the rest of us look a regular guy. But I'm forgetting
my mission. I've brought you an invitation to a party."

"What on earth should I do at a party?"

"Look pleasant. Did I take you to Miss Lessie Bell's dancing class for
nothing? and were you put through the steps of the Highland Fling in
vain?"

"I wasn't put through, I never learned."

"Well, you kicked at it anyway. I say, is all your pirouetting to be
done with stocks? Are you going to pass away in ignorance of polite
society and the manners of the ladies?"

"When I make a fortune, perhaps--"

"Perhaps is always too late. To-morrow is better."

"Where is the party?"

"The Blands are giving it. Uncle George was puffing and blowing about
you when we dined there last Sunday, and Sally Mickleborough told me to
bring you to her party on Wednesday night."

Rising hurriedly I walked away from young George to the fireplace. A
mist was before my eyes, I smelt again the scent of wallflowers, and I
saw in a dream the old grey house, with its delicate lace curtains
parted from the small square window-panes as if a face looked out on the
crooked pavement.

"I'll go, George," I said, wheeling about, "if you'll pledge yourself
that I go properly dressed."

"Done," he responded, with his unfailing amiability. "I'll tie your
cravat myself; and thank your stars, Ben, that whatever you are, you
can't be little, for that's the unforgivable sin in Sally's eyes."

On Wednesday night he proved as good as his promise, and when nine
o'clock struck, it found me, in irreproachable evening clothes,
following him down Franklin Street, to the old house, where a softly
coloured light streamed through the windows and lay in a rosy pool under
the sycamores. All day I had been very nervous. At the moment when I was
reading telegrams for the General, I had suddenly remembered that I
possessed no gloves suitable to be worn at my first party, and I had
committed so many blunders that the great man had roared the word
"Swelled!" in a furio