arrives the empty chair has begun to cast a
gloom over the dinner, and with the joint the conversation drifts into
talk about dead relatives.

On Friday, at a quarter past eight, he dashes to the door and rings
violently. Hearing his voice in the hall, you go to meet him.

"Sorry I'm late," he sings out cheerily. "Fool of a cabman took me to
Alfred Place instead of--"

"Well, what do you want now you are come?" you interrupt, feeling
anything but genially inclined towards him. He is an old friend, so you
can be rude to him.

He laughs, and slaps you on the shoulder.

"Why, my dinner, my dear boy, I'm starving."

"Oh," you grunt in reply. "Well, you go and get it somewhere else, then.
You're not going to have it here."

"What the devil do you mean?" he says. "You asked me to dinner."

"I did nothing of the kind," you tell him. "I asked you to dinner on
Thursday, not on Friday."

He stares at you incredulously.

"How did I get Friday fixed in my mind?" inquiringly.

"Because yours is the sort of mind that would get Friday firmly fixed
into it, when Thursday was the day," you explain. "I thought you had to
be off to Edinburgh to-night," you add.

"Great Scott!" he cries, "so I have."

And without another word he dashes out, and you hear him rushing down the
road, shouting for the cab he has just dismissed.

As you return to your study you reflect that he will have to travel all
the way to Scotland in evening dress, and will have to send out the hotel
porter in the morning to buy him a suit of ready-made clothes, and are
glad.

Matters work out still more awkwardly when it is he who is the host. I
remember being with him on his house-boat one day. It was a little after
twelve, and we were sitting on the edge of the boat, dangling our feet in
the river--the spot was a lonely one, half-way between Wallingford and
Day's Lock. Suddenly round the bend appeared two skiffs, each one
containing six elaborately-dressed persons. As soon as they caught sight
of us they began waving handkerchiefs and parasols.

"Hullo!" I said, "here's some people hailing you."

"Oh, they all do that about here," he answered, without looking up. "Some
beanfeast from Abingdon, I expect."

The boats draw nearer. When about two hundred yards off an elderly
gentleman raised himself up in the prow of the leading one and shouted to
us.

McQuae heard his voice, and gave a start that all but pitched him into
the water.