after
all I had had no experience of suppers, and was positive I should not
know what to do when the time came. I had neither the flow of
conversation of Doubleday, nor the store of stories of Daly, nor
Whipcord's sporting gossip, nor the Twins' self-possessed humour. And
if my guests should turn critical I was a lost man; that I knew. How I
wished I were safe on the other side of that awful Thursday!

The day came at last, and I hurried home as hard as I could after
business to make my final preparations. The eel-pie was arriving as I
got there, and my heart was comforted by the sight. Something, at
least, was ready. But my joy was short-lived, for Mrs Nash was in a
temper. The fact is, I had unconsciously neglected a piece of advice of
hers in the matter of this very eel-pie. She had said, have it hot. I
had told the pastrycook to deliver it cold. Therefore Mrs Nash, just
at the critical moment, deserted me!

With a feeling of desperation I laid my own tablecloth--not a very good
one--and arranged as best I could the plates and dishes. Time was
getting short, and it was no use wasting time on my crabby landlady.
Yet what could I do without her? Who was to lend me a kettle, or a
saucepan for the eggs, or a toasting-fork, or, for the matter of that,
any of the material of war? It was clear I must at all hazards regain
Mrs Nash, and the next half-hour was spent in frantic appeals to every
emotion she possessed, to the drawing of abject pictures of my own
helplessness, to profuse apologies, and compliments and coaxings. I
never worked so hard in my life as I did that half-hour.

Happily it was not all in vain. She consented, at any rate, to look
after one or two of the matters in which I was most helpless, and I was
duly and infinitely thankful.

In due time all was ready, and the hour arrived. All my terrors
returned. I felt tempted to bolt from the house and leave my guests to
entertain themselves. I _hated_ Beadle Square. And there, of course,
just when I should have liked things to be at their best, there were
three or four cats setting up a most hideous concert in the yard, and
the chimney in the parlour beginning to smoke. I could have torn my
hair with rage and vexation.

I seized the tongs, and was kneeling down and vigorously pushing them up
the chimney, to ascertain the cause of this last misfortune, when a loud
double-knock at the door startled me nearly out of my senses. I had
never