"Mr. Me, won't go."
There were no extenuating circumstances to excuse him, nor did he attempt to find or fake them. Past experience had shown him how transparent they were to me.
"I'm not up to the mark. I'm incapable of being a rapid-firing battery of wit, wisdom and epigrams," he announced.
"You should have realized your limitations sooner," I said, "for you cannot evade a dinner at the twelfth hour, when you are the guest of dishonour as well. We are already late. It's outrageous."
"Outrageous or not, I'm not going. You never do anything that is expected of you. Why should I? The less people see of me the better they will think of me. You must go and get me out of it as well as you can. Take a leaf out of my book and invent something."
That was too much.
"I won't have to invent, to tell them you are a lunatic resting from a lucid interval. No wonder there is no stampede for your work. You wrap yourself in impenetrability and expect the world to be clairvoyant. It won't do. I will be Balaam's ass no longer. You must bray for yourself."
His braying was the usual "Wow! Wow! Please extract poor Snippsy. He'll take Totesy Babe for a walk in Kensington Gardens every day and be such a good boy ever after. Why do you care how I treat others? I'm always old dog Tray to you."
What could one do with such a man? He had to be taken "as is," the way they label goods on bargain counters, or not at all. I could have insisted, and taken him willing or not, for more than he disliked being dragged out against his will did he hate to have me seriously provoked with him. But what would have been the use? He would have gone had I insisted, but acquitted himself in such a way that his absence would have been preferable.
This was not the first time that such a thing had occurred.