til
the party was over, and then they ate it in the kitchen, if there was
any left.

This was not a cheerful outlook for Harold, whose thoughts were more
intent upon cream and dancing than upon showing the people where to go,
and it was also the second time the word waiter had been used in
connection with what he was expected to do. But Harold was too young to
understand that he was not of the party itself. Later on it would come
to him fast enough, that he was only a part of the machinery which moved
the social engine. Now, he felt like the engine itself, and long before
six o'clock he was dressed, and waiting anxiously for his grandmother's
permission to start.'

'I'll tell you all about it,' he said to her. 'What they do, and what
they say, and what they wear, and if I can, I'll speak to Mr. Arthur
Tracy and thank him for mother's grave-stone.'

By seven o'clock he was on his way to the park, walking rapidly, and
occasionally saying aloud with a gesture of his hand to the right and
the left, and a bow almost to the ground.

'Ladies this way,' and 'gentlemen that.'

When he reached the house the gas-jets had just been turned up, and
every window was ablaze with light from the attic to the basement.

'My eye! ain't it swell!' Harold said to himself, as he stood a moment,
looking at the brilliantly lighted rooms. 'Don't I wish I was rich and
could burn all that gas, and maybe I shall be. Grandma says Mr. Arthur
Tracy was once a poor boy like me; only he had an uncle and I haven't.
I've got do earn my money, and I mean to, and sometimes, maybe, I'll
have a house us big as this, and just such a party, with a boy up stairs
to tell 'em where to go. I wonder now if I'm expected to go into the
kitchen door. Of course not, I've got on my Sunday clothes, and am
invited to the party. I shall ring,'

And he did ring--a sharp, loud ring, which made Mrs. Tracy, who had not
yet left her room, start nervously as she wondered who had come so
early.

'Old Peterkin, of course. Those whom you care for least always come
first.'

Peering over the banister Tom Tracy saw Harold when the door was opened,
and screaming to his mother at the top of his voice, 'It ain't old
Peterkin, mother; it's Hall Hastings, come to the front door,' he ran
down the stairs, and confronting the intruder just as he was crossing
the threshold, exclaimed:

'Go 'long; go back. You hain't no business ringin' the bell as if you
was a gentleman. Go to the