stress on."

"For instance?"

"I couldn't tell you any more than I could enable you to recognize a person
you'd never seen by describing him."

"Ain't I a gentleman?" I inquired.

He laughed, as if the idea tickled him. "Of course," he said. "Of course."

"Ain't I got as proper a country place as there is a-going? Ain't my
apartment in the Willoughby a peach? Don't I give as elegant dinners as you
ever sat down to? Don't I dress right up to the Piccadilly latest? Don't
I act all right--know enough to keep my feet off the table and my knife
out of my mouth?" All true enough; and I so crude then that I hadn't a
suspicion what a flat contradiction of my pretensions and beliefs about
myself the very words and phrases were.

"You're right in it, Matt," said Sam. "But--well--you haven't traveled with
our crowd, and they're shy of strangers, especially as--as energetic a sort
of stranger as you are. You're too sudden, Matt--too dazzling--too--"

"Too shiny and new?" said I, beginning to catch his drift. "That'll be
looked after. What I want is you to take me round a bit."

"I can't ask you to people's houses," protested he, knowing I'd not realize
what a flimsy pretense that was.

While we were talking I had been thinking--working out the proposition