"I must hunt 'em up. They've already called on Isabel, and perhaps, when she returns the call, she'll take me along."
"Who brought them up?" asked the Colonel idly.
"They've brought themselves up, for the last five or six years, and I'm of the opinion that they've always done it."
"Let's invite them to the dinner party."
Allison's eyes danced at the suggestion. "All right, but we'll have to see 'em first. They may not want to come."
"I've often wondered," mused the Colonel, "why it is so much more pleasant to entertain than it is to be entertained. I'd rather have a guest any day than to be one."
"And yet," returned Allison, "if you are a guest, you can get away any time you want to, within reasonable limits. If you're entertaining, you've got to keep it going until they all want to go."
"In that case, it might be better for us if we went to Crosbys'."
"We can do that, too. I think it would be fun, though, to have 'em here.
We need another man in one sense, though not in another."
"I have frequently had occasion to observe," remarked the Colonel, "that many promising dinners are wholly spoiled by the idea that there must be an equal number of men and women. One uncongenial guest can ruin a dinner more easily than a poor salad—and that is saying a great deal."