owned.
It was even more crumpled and worse creased than when I saw it down in
Hertfordshire.

"I hope you don't mind my coming here," he said. "I didn't like to go to
Mr. Ascher, and I was afraid to go to Michael. He'd have been angry with
me."

"Has anything gone wrong with your apparatus? Smashed a mirror?"

Tim brightened up at the mention of his apparatus.

"Oh, no," he said. "That's all right. In fact I've been able to improve
it greatly. You remember the trouble I had with the refraction from
the second prism. The adjustment of the angles---- The way the light
fell----"

I could not, especially before breakfast, argue about prisms.

"If your machinery's all right," I said, "what's the matter with you?"

"It's this party of Michael's," he said. "I forgot all about it till
yesterday afternoon."

"Well, you remembered it then. If you'd forgotten it till this afternoon
it would have been a much more serious matter."

"But," said Tim, "Michael told me to get some new clothes. He said he'd
pay for them, which was very kind of him. But when I got up to London
the shops were shut. I hurried as much as I could, but there were one or
two things I had to do before I started. And now I'm afraid Michael will
be angry. He said most particularly that I must be well dressed because
there are ladies coming."

"Stand up," I said, "and let me have a look at you."

Poor Tim stood up, looking as if he expected me to box his ears. There
was no disguising the fact that his costume fell some way short of the
standard maintained by Cowes yachtsmen.

Tim surveyed himself with a rueful air. He was certainly aware of the
condition of his clothes.

"If I could even have got a ready made suit," he said, "it might have
fitted. But I couldn't do that. I didn't get to London till nearly ten
o'clock. There was a train at four. I wish now that I'd caught it. It
was only a few minutes after three when I remembered about the party and
I might have caught that train. But I didn't want to leave just then.
There were some things that I had to do. Perhaps now I'd better not go
to the party. Michael will be angry if I don't; but I expect he'll be
angrier if I go in these clothes. I think I'd better not go at all."

He looked at me wistfully. He was hoping, I am sure, that I might decide
that he was too disreputable to appear.

"No," I said, "you can't get out of it that way. You'll have to come."

"But can I? You know better than I do.