“I mean to be, though. Friendship must begin somewhere, and ours flourishes like Jack’s bean-stalk.”
“’Pon my word, I—”
“There, now, you’ll write for the card to-night: ‘Mr. John V. Crosse presents his compliments to Mrs. Dyke Howell, and would feel much obliged for an invitation for an English friend’—it looks well to have an English friend—‘for her garden party to-morrow,’ or words to that effect. We’ll send it off to-night, and you see, old man, it will get you an invitation as well.”
“You are the coolest hand I ever even read of.”
“Must be. My godmother’s legacy, like Bob Acre’s courage, is oozing out at my fingers’ ends, and I’ve nothing but my return ticket and my audacity to look to. Come, now, Crosse, don’t do things by halves. You’ve introduced me to a very nice family. Can’t say I admire my mother-in-law. What son-in-law does, though? The old boy is no end of a bore, but Hattie is all there.”
“I did not introduce you, Mr. Price; you introduced yourself.”
“Never could have done it but for you; ergo, logically, you introduced me.”
To my shame be it said, I wrote a note from the Ocean House to Mrs. Dyke Howell, a haughty lady of cadaverous aspect, and a nose resembling that of the late Duke of Wellington, who believed in that small monarchy called Knickerbockerdom, and in everything high, and mighty, and fashionable.
The cards came without note or comment, and my friend Price and I started for Hawthorndale. He wore a frock-coat that, even irritated as I was, evoked admiring comment, and a tall hat so shiny that I felt I could have shaved by it.
Before starting I telegraphed to Sir Harvey Price, Bart., Holten Moat, Sevenoaks, Kent, England, in the following words: