smart indeed from the viewpoint of the expensive tailor who had made it,
but deceivingly unconventional to the eye of the uninitiated. This he put
on, taking particular pains to select a very plain cravat, and to fasten
in it with care the scarf-pin bestowed upon him by old Benson, the little
watchmaker on the corner below. Through the buttonhole in the lapel of
his coat he drew a spicy-smelling sprig of ground-pine, chanting
whimsically as he did so a couplet from Ben Jonson:

"Still to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast."




VIII

BROWN'S BIDDEN GUESTS


And now, promptly on the stroke of two, the dinner guests arrived, not a
man or woman of them later than five minutes after. Even Mrs. Kelcey,
though she had rushed into the kitchen two minutes earlier by the back
door, now entered formally with Patrick, her husband, by the front, and
only the high flush on her cheek and the sparkle in her blue-black eye
told of a sense of her responsibilities.

The company had put on its best for the occasion, there could be no
possible question of that. From the pink geranium in Mrs. Kelcey's
hair just behind her ear, to the high polish of her husband's boots,
the Kelceys were brave and fine. Mrs. Murdison, though soberly gowned