“All right,” said Telson. “I’ve not promised, mind, if he can’t come.”
“Oh, yes, you have!” replied Brown, severely, as he left the room.
In due time he found Parson and broached the subject to him.
Parson viewed the matter in very much the same light as Telson had. He liked the “tuck-in” better than the company.
It never occurred to him it was odd that Brown should come all the way from the schoolhouse to invite him, a Parrett’s junior, to his feast; nor did it occur to him either that the invitation put him under any obligation to his would-be host.
“I tell you what I’ll do,” said he, in a business-like manner, much as if Brown had asked him to clean out his study for him, “if you ask Telson to come too, I’m game.”
Brown half doubted whether these two allies had not been consulting together on the subject, so startling was the similarity of their conditions.
“Oh! Telson’s coming,” he said, in as offhand a way as he could.
“He is! Then I’m on, old man; rather!” exclaimed the delighted Parson.
“All right! Six-thirty, mind, and chokers!” said Brown, not a little relieved to have scraped up two friends for the festive occasion. At the appointed time—or rather before the appointed time, for they arrived at twenty minutes past six—our two heroes, arrayed in their Sunday jackets and white ties, presented themselves at the house of their host. They had “put it on” considerably in order to get ahead of the doctor’s party; for they considered that—as Parson expressed it—“it would be a jolly lot less blushy work” to be there before the head master arrived. There was no doubt about their success in this little manoeuvre, for when the servant opened the door the hall was full of rout seats, and a man, uncommonly like the greengrocer, in a dress coat, was busily unpacking plates out of a small hamper.