Little by little, the wily caterer had induced her to trust the whole thing into his hands. In cases where Simonson undertook to serve the feast throughout, it was his custom, he said, to supply also the table service, china, silver, dishes, candelabra, rose-colored candles with shades to match, side-dishes for bonbons—all. Under these conditions he guaranteed that Mrs. Stratton’s dinner should be the finest ever seen in Sutphen. And thus it came to pass that with a heart lightened of responsibility, but weighted with some apprehension as to the amount of the final bill, Mrs. Stratton had tripped away from Simonson’s. Her last word, an afterthought upon the sidewalk, which she returned to the shop to deliver, was to enjoin upon the glib caterer absolute silence regarding every detail of her arrangements.
“MR. BLUDGEON HAD BETTER BE READ THAN SEEN.”
When the day arrived that was to see the triplicated entertainment of the Englishman, Sutphen was at fever-heat. So much had popular imagination expected of the object of all these cares, it was a distinct disappointment when a solemn little black-a-vised man carrying an American “dress-suit” case, stepped out of the omnibus of the Dixon House and requested of the clerk of that hostelry one of his one-dollar rooms. Barring a further demand for hot water in a jug—which the bell boy took to indicate some intention toward a private brew of punch—there was nothing to distinguish the great genius from an ordinary commercial traveler. Some enterprising spirits who had been hanging around the hotel corridor to see this arrival, went home and confided to wives and daughters their opinion that Mr. Bludgeon had better be read than seen. And these ladies who for days had been conning well-thumbed volumes of his writings sighed the sigh of discomfiture—feeling rather glad, however, that certain entertainers who were at that moment yearning for his arrival, were destined to share their disillusionment. Just before the arrival of her twelve guests for luncheon, Miss Bennett received a hasty note from Mrs. Stratton, expressing deepest regret that her fatigue resulting from necessary cares of state and home (of which naturally there was no one to relieve her) would prevent her from being present.
“‘A positively raging headache,’ she says,” remarked Cornelia, compressing her lips. “Never mind, mother; I don’t care. I’ll send right over and fill up with little Miss James, the elocution teacher. She is pretty and clever, and can talk up to Annetta any day, if she only gets the chance. And if you’ll believe me, mother, it’s not so much headache the matter with Annetta as vexation because I’m to skim the cream off the milk pan first. Good gracious! I’m tired to death myself, but I’d rather die than give up now.”
Curiosity among Miss Bennett’s invités was fully sated when, upon the arrival of the guest of honor, luncheon was at once announced, and they filed into the well-remembered dining-room, where they had of old partaken of feasts of the frizzled beef and scrambled egg description. Here, mirabile dictu! was a board set out in modern conventional fashion—a silver wine-cooler full of roses in the center, silver dishlets holding salted almonds, bonbons and little cakes around it; at each cover a name card, napkin, glass for claret, another for sauterne, and still another for sherry, setting off a plate of blue Meissen porcelain!
So far Mr. Bludgeon had said little beside “hum!” and “ha!” He had devoured his bread and bouillon in silence, and had drank a glass of white wine; but now he bestowed upon the listening public his first connected utterance:
“Hum! ha! very fair imitation,” he said to his hostess, turning his plate upside down to gaze upon the trade-mark on the bottom. “We use this kind of thing in our own house for every day. Perhaps you knew—but it may be only chance—that this is my favorite pattern in china. Looks clean and tidy somehow, so I tell my wife.”
Sustained by this mark of approval, Miss Bennett inwardly blessed Simonson, who, looking unconscious in an evening dress suit, was occupied at the side table, in dispensing platters of fish croquettes to his two subordinates to serve. She only wished that Annetta Stratton might have been near enough to hear. The rest of the meal, whisked along expeditiously by the trained minions, went so fast, that Miss Bennett could hardly believe her good luck when all was over. True to the instincts of more artless days, she had some thoughts of putting on her bonnet and running out to talk it over with Annetta. But her feet ached, her dress felt too tight, her mother was fretting over the loss of both pairs of spectacles, Simonson’s men were overrunning everything, Mr. Bludgeon had gone away without more than the scantest recognition of her personality—so she went up to her bedroom and had a hearty, nervous cry.
In the Lyceum Hall that afternoon, where the literary club met at 4 P.M. for the “lecture,” everybody was buzzing over the reports of the Bennetts’ swell luncheon. Mrs. Chauncey Stratton, who had insisted upon calling at the Dixon House to fetch Mr. Bludgeon to the hall in her own carriage, did not arrive till too late to hear the gossip. Just before the solemn little man stepped upon the platform, the great lady of Sutphen passed up the middle aisle, wearing a bonnet with plumes turning to all points of the compass, a trailing skirt of rich satin, a jet cuirass, and a large bouquet of violets in the bosom of her gown. Smiling, nodding on all sides with conscious pride, this patron of letters took her seat beside Mrs. Mark Grindstone.