people who ought to be invited. Several aldermen had been requested to
do the same. There were thus about half-a-dozen lists to be combined
into one. Denry did the combining. Nothing was easier than to insert the
name of E.H. Machin inconspicuously towards the centre of the list!
Nothing was easier than to lose the original lists, inadvertently, so
that if a question arose as to any particular name, the responsibility
for it could not be ascertained without inquiries too delicate to be
made. On Wednesday Denry received a lovely Bristol board, stating in
copper-plate that the Countess desired the pleasure of his company at
the ball; and on Thursday his name was ticked off as one who had
accepted.


IV

He had never been to a dance. He had no dress-suit, and no notion of
dancing.

He was a strange, inconsequent mixture of courage and timidity. You and
I are consistent in character; we are either one thing or the other but
Denry Machin had no consistency.

For three days he hesitated, and then, secretly trembling, he slipped
into Shillitoe's, the young tailor who had recently set up, and who was
gathering together the _jeunesse dorée_ of the town.

"I want a dress-suit," he said.

Shillitoe, who knew that Denry only earned eighteen shillings a week,
replied with only superficial politeness that a dress-suit was out of