"Bless you! there wasn't nearly room for all the things that these gents kept a-handing me, and unless I took to standin' on 'em, I didn't see what I was to do. So when there came a sort of a lull like I looks round to see how I could make a bit of room. 'Alf them gents hadn't squashed in their 'igh 'ats, like the other gents 'ad done, and I sees at once as how they were takin' up more than their fair share of space. So I makes up my mind to squash 'em for 'em, and I sets about a-doin' it. I takes up a 'igh 'at what a old gent had just a-give me--a beautiful shiny one it was--and I sets it against my stomach and I starts a-'eavin'. I'd no idea it'd be so 'ard. Them other gents had seemed to squash theirs easy, but this 'ere one took some shovin'. And, when it did go, it went all lop-sided like. I had to sit on it before it'd lie down flat.
"I had my 'and full, I tell you, squashin' all them 'igh 'ats. There was forty of 'em, if there was one. Fair 'ard work I found it. I supposed there was some knack about the thing as I 'adn't yet caught. And when I'd finished the lot I took a squint at 'em. If you'll believe me, a shiver went up and down my back. Somehow I didn't like the way as they was lookin'. There was a crumpled sort of look about 'em which didn't seem like as it ought to be. I was a-perspirin' all over. Perkins's breeches had come undone behind, and was 'anging about me anyhow; my collar had come unpinned at the back of my shirt; the bow that Mrs. Perkins had give me for a necktie had worked loose in front. A lot of them articles hadn't got no numbers on, and most of them as had I felt certain as I'd given to the wrong parties; and, altogether, I began to wish as how I hadn't come.
"Presently the old gent as had given me the 'igh 'at as I had started squashin' came up to the door. He was a tall old gent, very fierce-lookin', with a long white moustache--a regular toff. As he'd been the last to come, and it seemed as how he was goin' to be the first to go, it looked as if he had soon had enough of the party. 'Give me my 'at,' he says.
"I knew which was his 'at, though it 'adn't got no number. I had good reason to. So I routed it out from under a 'eap of others. He looks at it, and then he looks at me.
"'That's not my 'at,' he says.
"'Excuse me, sir,' I says, 'it is your 'at--leastways, it's the one as you gave to me.'
"He looks at the 'at again, and then again he looks at me, and all of a sudden he went quite red in the face.
"'Mine was a new 'at!'
"'Yes, sir,' I says; 'so I thought, sir, when you gave it me. It didn't look as though it 'adn't never been worn. If you try this 'at on, sir, you will find, sir, as it's yours.'
"Then he takes the 'at out of my 'and, lookin' at me once more, searchin' like, and he turns it round and round, and he squints inside of it.