Mr. Mackworth, I can do it easily ... if they'll fit him."

There was an impersonality, however, about Merton's cryptic words that
annoyed me.

"You are going home with Ally, John," Mackworth said to me, using my
familiar name for the first time, "and borrow a suit of his clothes ...
and you are coming back with him to dinner ... where you'll meet a very
famous person--Miss Clara Martin."

* * * * *

Ally's blue serge suit was too short in the legs and arms for me ...
otherwise it fitted. His gentleness and unobtrusive quietness entered
into me, along with the putting on of his apparel. He led me upstairs in
his house.

"Mr. Mackworth has asked me to put you up while you are in town ...
because his own house is full at present, otherwise he would accommodate
you there ... I guess we can make shift to entertain you properly.

"Here is the bathroom ... if you don't mind my saying it, when you throw
the toilet seat up, let the water run from the tap over the wash basin
... my mother and sisters!" he trailed off in inaudible, deprecative
urge of the proprieties.

Ally was anything but a small-town product. Suave, socially adroit, an
instinctive creature of Good Form....

He came into the room he had given me to stay in. I looked like a
different man, togged out in his clothes. Ally was surprised that I
could wear his shoes ... he had such small feet ... I informed him
proudly that I, too, had small feet....

"No, no, that is not the way to tie a tie ... let me show you ... you
must make both ends meet exactly ... there, that's it!" and he stepped
back, a look of satisfaction on his face ... he handed me a pearl stick
pin.

"This is a loan, not a gift," he murmured.

I returned a quick, angry look.

"I don't want your pin."

"No offence meant," he deprecated, "and you must wear it" (for I was
putting it aside) "Mr. Mackworth and I both want you to look your best
when you meet Miss Martin at dinner to-night".... I angrily almost
decided to take his pin with me when I left, just to fulfill his
pre-supposition.

"No, that's not the place to stick it ... let me show you ... not in the
body of the tie, but further down," and he deftly placed the pin in the
right spot. Then he stepped back like an artist who is proud of having
made a good job of bad materials....

"You look almost like a gentleman."

I was about to lick into Merton and lend him a sample of a few strong
objurgat