settled the question adversely to a white waistcoat.
The author, however, after being very explicit in telling them not to
eat with their knives, and above all not to pick their teeth with their
forks,--a thing which he said no lady or gentleman ever did,--was still
far from decided as to the kind of cravat Colonel Lapham ought to wear:
shaken on other points, Lapham had begun to waver also concerning the
black cravat. As to the question of gloves for the Colonel, which
suddenly flashed upon him one evening, it appeared never to have
entered the thoughts of the etiquette man, as Lapham called him. Other
authors on the same subject were equally silent, and Irene could only
remember having heard, in some vague sort of way, that gentlemen did
not wear gloves so much any more.

Drops of perspiration gathered on Lapham's forehead in the anxiety of
the debate; he groaned, and he swore a little in the compromise
profanity which he used.

"I declare," said Penelope, where she sat purblindly sewing on a bit of
dress for Irene, "the Colonel's clothes are as much trouble as
anybody's. Why don't you go to Jordan & Marsh's and order one of the
imported dresses for yourself, father?" That gave them all the relief
of a laugh over it, the Colonel joining in piteously.

He had an awful longing to find out from Corey how he ought to go. He
formulated and repeated over to himself an apparently careless
question, such as, "Oh, by the way, Corey, where do you get your
gloves?" This would naturally lead to some talk on the subject, which
would, if properly managed, clear up the whole trouble. But Lapham
found that he would rather die than ask this question, or any question
that would bring up the dinner again. Corey did not recur to it, and
Lapham avoided the matter with positive fierceness. He shunned talking
with Corey at all, and suffered in grim silence.

One night, before they fell asleep, his wife said to him, "I was
reading in one of those books to-day, and I don't believe but what
we've made a mistake if Pen holds out that she won't go."

"Why?" demanded Lapham, in the dismay which beset him at every fresh
recurrence to the subject.

"The book says that it's very impolite not to answer a dinner
invitation promptly. Well, we've done that all right,--at first I
didn't know but what we had been a little too quick, may be,--but then
it says if you're not going, that it's the height of rudeness not to
let them know at once,