! Hep, hep,
hep--parade rest--here you are! And here's the blank you write it on.
Now go to it!"

"I--er--but I'm not quite sure," protests Ferdie, peelin' off one of his
chamois gloves, "I'm not quite sure of just what I ought to say."

"That bein' the case," says I, "it's lucky you ran into me, ain't it?
Now what's the argument?"

Course it was a harrowin' crisis. Him and Marjorie had got an invite
some ten days ago to spend the week-end at a swell country house over on
Long Island. They'd hemmed and hawed, and fin'lly ducked by sendin' word
they was so sorry, but they was expectin' a young gent as guest about
then. The answer they got back was, "Bring him along, for the love of
Mike!" or words to that effect. Then they'd debated the question some
more. Meanwhile the young gent had canceled his date, and the time has
slipped by, and here it was almost Saturday, and nothin' doing in the
reply line from them. Marjorie had thought of it while they was havin'
lunch in town, and she'd chased Ferdie out to send a wire, without
tellin' him what to say.

"And you want someone to make up your mind for you, eh?" says I. "All
right. That's my long suit. Take this: 'Regret very much unable to
accept your kind invitation'--which might mean anything, from a previous
engagement to total paralysis."

"Ye-e-es," says Ferdie, hangin' his bamboo stick over his left arm and
chewin' the penholder thoughtful, "but Marjorie'll be awfully
disappointed. I think she really does want to go."

"Ah, squiffle!" says I. "She'll get over it. Whose joint is it, anyway?"

"Why," says he, "the Pulsifers', you know."

"Eh?" says I. "Not the Adam K.'s place, Cedarholm?"

Ferdie nods. And, say, it was like catchin' a chicken sandwich dropped
out of a clear sky. The Pulsifers! Didn't I know who was there? I did!
I'd had a bulletin from a very special and particular party, sayin' how
she'd be there for a week, while Aunty was in the Berkshires. And up to
this minute my chances of gettin' inside Cedarholm gates had been null
and void, or even worse. But now--say, I wanted to be real kind to
Ferdie!

"One or two old friends of Marjorie's are to be there," he goes on
dreamy.

"They are?" says I. "Then that's diff'rent. You got to go, of course."

"But--but," says he, "only a moment ago you----"

"Ah, mooshwaw!" says I. "You don't want Marjorie grumpin' around for the
next week, do you, wishin' she'd gone, and layin' it all to you?"

Ferdie bl