“If I could even have got a ready made suit,” he said, “it might have fitted. But I couldn’t do that. I didn’t get to London till nearly ten o’clock. There was a train at four. I wish now that I’d caught it. It was only a few minutes after three when I remembered about the party and I might have caught that train. But I didn’t want to leave just then. There were some things that I had to do. Perhaps now I’d better not go to the party. Michael will be angry if I don’t; but I expect he’ll be angrier if I go in these clothes. I think I’d better not go at all.”
He looked at me wistfully. He was hoping, I am sure, that I might decide that he was too disreputable to appear.
“No,” I said, “you can’t get out of it that way. You’ll have to come.”
“But can I? You know better than I do. I did brush my trousers a lot this morning—really. I brushed them for quite half an hour; but there are some mark——”
He held out his right leg and looked at it hopelessly.
“Stains, I suppose,” he said.
“You’d be better,” I said, “if you had a tie.”
Tim put his hand up to his neck and felt about helplessly.
“I must have forgotten to put it on,” he said. “I have one, I know. But it’s very hard to remember ties. They are such small things.”
“Take one of mine,” I said, “and put it on before you forget again.”