out rather shiny, and I thought it better to hire one for the occasion.
There was no trouble about a fit--I have standardized shoulders, as you
know.

"Of course I miss you all the time, and I assuredly missed you just here.
If it is really true, as you write, that you are holding your summer gains
and weigh twelve pounds more than you did at the end of June, and if you
are thinking of getting a new suit, please bear in mind that my own won't
last much longer. I have the chance, now, to go out a good deal and to meet
influential, worth-while people. In the circumstances I ask you not to
bant. One rather spare man in a pair of men is enough.

"My hostess, a Mrs. Phillips, I met at a tea during my first week. This tea
was given by a lady in the mathematical department, and she and her husband
were at the dinner. They are people in the early or middle thirties, I
judge, and were probably put in as a connecting link between the two
sections of the party. Mrs. Phillips herself is a rich widow of forty-odd--
forty-five or six, possibly,--though I am not the very best judge in such
matters: no need to tell you that, on such a point, my eye and my general
sense are none too acute. The only other middle-aged (or elderly) person
present was a Mr. Randolph, who is perhaps fifty, or a little beyond, yet
who appears to have his younger moments. There were some girls, and there
were two young men in business in the city--neighbors and not connected
with the University at all. 'For which relief,' etc.,--since it _is_ a
bit benumbing to move in academic circles exclusively;--I should hate to
feel that a really professorial manner was stealing over me. Well,
everybody was lively and gay, except at first Ryder (he's the math. man);
but even he limbered up finally. Mrs. Phillips herself has a great deal of
action and vivacity--seemed hardly more than thirty. Well, I could be
pretty gay too with a lot of money behind me; and I think that, for another