"I'd do it and welcome, Mr. Tom."
Mr. Tom told of his invitation to New Hampshire, and of his ignorance of what to do and wear. If Pilcher would only give him a hint....
He could not have found a better guide. Pilcher explained that a few little things had to be as second nature. A few other little things were uncertain points as to which it was always permissible to ask. In the way of second nature Tom would find sporting flannels and tennis shoes an essential. So he would find a dinner-jacket suit, with the right kind of shirt, collar, tie, shoes, and socks to wear with it. As to things permissible to ask about, Pilcher could more easily explain them when they were both in the same house. Occasions would crop up, but could not be foreseen.
"The real gentry is ever afraid of showin' that they don't know. They takes not knowin' as a joke. Many's the time when I've been waitin' at table I've 'eard a born gentleman ask the born lady sittin' next to 'im which'd be the right fork to use, and she'd say that she didn't know but was lookin' round to see what other people done. That's what they calls hease of manner, Mr. Tom."
Under the Ansley roof he would meet none but the gentry born. Any one of them would respect him more for asking when he didn't know. It was only the second class that bothered about being so terribly correct, and they were not invited by Mrs. Ansley. In addition to these consoling facts Tom could always fall back on him, Pilcher, as a referee.
Being a guest in a community in which two years earlier he had been a chauffeur Tom found easier than he had expected because he worked out a formula. He framed his formula before going to New Hampshire.
"Servants are servants and masters are masters because they divide themselves into classes. The one is above, and is recognized as being above; the other is below, and is recognized as being below. I shall be neither below nor above; or I shall be both. I will not go into a class. As far as I know how I'll be everybody's equal."
He had, however, to find another formula for this.
"You're everybody's equal when you know you are. Whatever you know will go of itself. The trouble I see with the bumptious American, who claims that he's as good as anybody else, is that he thinks only of forcing himself to the level of the highest; he doesn't begin at the bottom, and cover all the ground between the bottom and the top. I'm going to do that. I shall be at home among the lot of them. To be at home I must feel at home. I mustn't condescend to the boys of two years ago who'll still be driving cars, and I mustn't put on airs to be fit for Mrs. Ansley's drawing-room. I must be myself. I mustn't be ashamed because I've been in a humble position; and I mustn't be swanky because I've been put in a better one. I must be natural; I must be big. That'll give me the ease of manner Pilcher talks about."
With these principles as a basis of behavior, his embarrassments sprang from another source. They began at the station in Keene. He knew he was to be met; and he supposed it would be by Guy.