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that Mrs. Dangerfield had invited some friends to meet him and her brother. Here was his chance to shine, to show Sir Maurice his social mettle.

He could have wished that the party had been larger. They were only a dozen all told: Mr. Carruthers, the squire of Little Deeping, the vicar and his wife, the higher mathematician, father of Wiggins, Mrs. Blenkinsop and Mrs. Morton, and Wiggins himself, who had spent most of the after-
noon with Erebus. Captain Baster would have pre-
ferred thirty or forty, but none the less he fell to work with a will.

Mrs. Dangerfield had taken advantage of the Indian summer afternoon to have tea in the garden; and it gave him room to expand. He was soon the life and soul of the gathering. He was humorous with the vicar about the church, and with the squire about the dulling effect of the country on the intelli-
gence. He tried to be humorous with Mr. Car-
rington, the higher mathematician, whom he took to have retired from some profession or business. This was so signal a failure that he dropped hu-
mor and became important, telling them of his flat in town and his country-house, their size and their