“That’s right. We’ll be right down,” said I.
We heard the tramp of the other three, and I would have run down on account of the stranger within my gates, but Ellery asked me to tie his cravat, and I made a botchy tie of it, and finally Ethel called up from the dining room. “We’re all waiting, dear.”
Then we both went down in our evening clothes, and entered the dining room. Around it stood the ladies and the three men, and when we saw them and they saw us a happy shout arose. The men were not in evening dress.
They had seen me when they first came down, and, as Tom explained afterward, Hepburn, seeing that I was not in evening clothes, had suggested that they all change back, which Tom was very glad to do, “as he hated the durned things.”
So there they stood in sacks and cutaway and we were the only ones in evening dress.
“Well, I won’t change back again,” said I, “but after this let’s give our city clothes a rest and just be comfortable.”
“But I contend,” said Benedict, “that evening clothes are just as comfortable.”
“Yes,” said Tom, “but it’s harder to get into ’em, and if we go out walking after dinner it’s ridiculous to be dressed so stiffly in a wild flower country.”
It was a jolly dinner and no one did more to make it jolly than Tom. His humour is elemental, but it is genuine, and his appreciation of it is also genuine and his tremendous reverberating laugh is infectious.
Many times during the progress of the meal I found Hepburn’s placid eyes resting on Cherry.