A Jolly Fellowship

by Frank R. Stockton

"Yes," I interrupted, "and that seems to me, sir, the very reason why you should be there."

"The very reason why I should not be there," he said. "You see, I couldn't sit down with that most perverse and obstinate man, Colbert, and feel sure that something or other would not occur which would make an outbreak between us, or, at any rate, bad feeling. In fact, I know I could not take pleasure in seeing him enjoy food. This may be wrong, but I can't help it. It's in me. And I wont be the means of casting a shadow over the happy company which will meet here to-night. No one but your folks need know I'm not coming. The rest will not know why I am detained, and I shall drop in toward the close of the meal, just before you break up. I want you to ask your father to take the head of the table. He is just the man for such a place, and he ought to have it, too, for another reason. You ought to know that this dinner is really given to you in your honor. To be sure, Rectus is a good fellow—splendid—and does everything that he knows how; but my wife and I know that we owe all our present happiness to your exertions and good sense."

He went on in this way for some time, and although I tried to stop him, I couldn't do it.

"Therefore," he continued, "I want your father to preside, and all of you to be happy, without a suspicion of a cloud about you. At any rate, I shall be no cloud. Come around here early, and see that everything is all right. Now I must be off."

And away he went.

I did not like this state of affairs at all. I would have much preferred to have no dinner. It was not necessary, any way. If I had had the authority, I would have stopped the whole thing. But it was Uncle Chipperton's affair, he paid for it, and I had no right to interfere with it.

My father liked the matter even less than I did. He said it was a strange and unwarrantable performance on the part of Chipperton, and he did not understand it. And he certainly did not want to sit at the head of the table in another man's place. I could not say anything to him to make him feel better about it. I made him feel worse, indeed, when I told him that Uncle Chipperton did not want his absence explained, or alluded to, any more than could be helped. My father hated to have to keep a secret of this kind.

In the afternoon, I went around to the hotel where the Chippertons always staid, when they were in New York, to see Corny and her mother. I found them rather blue. Uncle Chipperton had not been able to keep his plan from them, and they thought it was dreadful. I could not help letting them see that I did not like it, and so we didn't have as lively a time as we ought to have had.

I supposed that if I went to see Rectus, and told him about the matter, I should make him blue, too. But, as I had no right to tell him, and also felt a pretty strong desire that some of the folks should come with good spirits and appetites, I kept away from him. He would have been sure to see that something was the matter.

I was the first person to appear in the dining-room of the restaurant where the dinner-table was spread for us. It was a prettily furnished parlor in the second story of the house, and the table was very tastefully arranged and decorated with flowers. I went early, by myself, so as to be sure that everything was exactly right before the guests arrived. All seemed perfectly correct; the name of each member of the party was on a card by a plate. Even little Helen had her plate and her card. It would be her first appearance at a regular dinner-party.