the whole price of the boat. Then he met Mrs
Cotterill coming out of a shop. Mrs Cotterill, owing to a strange hazard
of fate, began talking at once. And Denry, as an old shorthand writer,
instinctively calculated that not Thomas Allen Reed himself could have
taken Mrs Cotterill down verbatim. Her face tried to express pain, but
pleasure shone out of it. For she found herself in an exciting
contretemps which she could understand.

"Oh, Mr Machin," she said, "what _do_ you think's happened? I don't
know how to tell you, I'm sure. Here you've arranged for that dinner
to-morrow and it's all settled, and now Miss Earp telegraphs to our
Nellie to say she's coming to-morrow for a day or two with us. You know
Ruth and Nellie are _such_ friends. It's like as if what must be,
isn't it? I don't know what to do, I do declare. What _ever_ will
Ruth say at us leaving her all alone the first night she comes? I really
do think she might have----"

"You must bring her along with you," said Denry.

"But won't you--shan't you--won't she--won't it----"

"Not at all," said Denry. "Speaking for myself, I shall be delighted."

"Well, I'm sure you're very sensible," said Mrs Cotterill. "I was but
saying to Mr Cotterill over breakfast--I said to him----"

"I shall ask Councillor Rhys-Jones to meet you," said Denry. "He's one
of the principal members of the Town Council here; Local Secretary of
the Lifeboat Institution. Great friend of mine."

"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs Cotterill, "it'll be quite an affair."

It was.

Denry found to his relief that the only difficult part of arranging a
dinner at the Majestic was the steeling of yourself to enter the
gorgeous portals of the hotel. After that, and after murmuring that you
wished to fix up a little snack, you had nothing to do but listen to
suggestions, each surpassing the rest in splendour, and say "Yes."
Similarly with the greeting of a young woman who was once to you the
jewel of the world. You simply said, "Good-afternoon, how are you?" And
she said the same. And you shook hands. And there you were, still alive!

The one defect of the dinner was that the men were not in evening dress.
(Denry registered a new rule of life: Never travel without your evening
dress, because you never know what may turn up.) The girls were
radiantly white. And after all there is nothing like white. Mrs
Cotterill was in black silk and silence. And after all there is nothing
like black silk. There was champagne