It was kind o’ satisfied that he showed himself when I told him I had been asked to eat my Christmas dinner with Mrs. and Miss Barry.
“Ain’t that grand!” he commented, exultingly. “Ye’ll put on them swell togs—”
“But it will leave you alone, Lovey,” I reminded him.
“Lord love ye, Slim, I don’t mind that! What’s Christmas to me? I don’t pay no attention to all that foolishness—except the plum puddin’.”
I felt it right to throw out a warning.
“In your dining-room, Lovey, with all the chauffeurs, there’ll be things to drink, very likely.”
He put on his melancholy face.
“It won’t make no difference to me, Slim. The Down and Out has got me bound by so many promises, like, that I can’t take a sip o’ nothink, not no more than a dead man that’s got a bottle in ’is coffin. I’m one that can take it or leave it, as I feel inclined.”
“If you’re going to try taking it or leaving it to-morrow I sha’n’t accept Mrs. Barry’s invitation to dinner.”
The effect was what I had expected.