So off he went, with despair in his eye, and Jane and I waited for him in the kitchen. At the end of half an hour he reappeared. He had merely put on a horrible black coat; for the rest, I could see no improvement.
There he stood, without hat or gloves.
“I am ready,” said he.
“You imp!” I cried; “you’ve been playing about! What have you been at all this time? Do you suppose I can present such a scarecrow to my relations?”
“Emilia,” answered the poor dear, very solemnly, “I have washed!”
There was nothing for it but to make him fetch the clothes-brush, and other implements of torture. Jane and I marched him out into the hall, and there we prepared the victim. We brushed his clothes, and straightened his necktie. Even Richard Norton was so excited by the scene that he fetched the blacking-bottle and polished Gabriel’s boots, whilst Jane acted hairdresser and I held him down by both hands. This in the midst of so much laughter that the tears stood in our eyes.
When at last we turned him round for inspection, smooth-haired and stiff with the consciousness of his respectability, I could have wept at my own handiwork.
“You poor dear!” I cried. “Oh, Jane, doesn’t he look horrible!”
But Gabriel went into the parlour to look at himself in the mirror, and declared that he pleased himself mightily.
The visit itself was comparatively uneventful. They have asked us to dine next Friday, but I doubt whether we shall go. Gabriel suggests that we should get married at once and fly from such terrors.