FullReads

When he had reached his apartments he said to me, with a too patronizing air: “There are, as you perhaps know, quite a number of little distinguishing touches to be had out of the dressing process. Some writers rely almost wholly upon them. I suppose that I am to ring for my man, and that he is to enter noiselessly, with an expressionless countenance.”

“He may enter,” I said, with decision, “and only enter. Valets do not usually enter a room shouting college songs or with St. Vitus’s dance in their faces; so the contrary may be assumed without fatuous or gratuitous asseveration.”

“I must ask you to pardon me,” continued Van Sweller, gracefully, “for annoying you with questions, but some of your methods are a little new to me. Shall I don a full-dress suit with an immaculate white tie–or is there another tradition to be upset?”

“You will wear,” I replied, “evening dress, such as a gentleman wears. If it is full, your tailor should be responsible for its bagginess. And I will leave it to whatever erudition you are supposed to possess whether a white tie is rendered any whiter by being immaculate. And I will leave it to the consciences of you and your man whether a tie that is not white, and therefore not immaculate, could possibly form any part of a gentleman’s evening dress. If not, then the perfect tie is included and understood in the term ‘dress,’ and its expressed addition predicates either a redundancy of speech or the spectacle of a man wearing two ties at once.”

With this mild but deserved rebuke I left Van Sweller in his dressing-room, and waited for him in his library.

About an hour later his valet came out, and I heard him telephone for an electric cab. Then out came Van Sweller, smiling, but with that sly, secretive design in his eye that was puzzling me.

“I believe,” he said easily, as he smoothed a glove, “that I will drop in at —–* [Footnote: See advertising column, “Where to Dine Well,” in the daily newspapers.] for dinner.”

I sprang up, angrily, at his words. This, then, was the paltry trick he had been scheming to play upon me. I faced him with a look so grim that even his patrician poise was flustered.

“You will never do so,” I exclaimed, “with my permission. What kind of a return is this,” I continued, hotly, “for the favors I have granted you? I gave you a ‘Van’ to your name when I might have called you ‘Perkins’ or ‘Simpson.’ I have humbled myself so far as to brag of your polo ponies, your automobiles, and the iron muscles that you acquired when you were stroke-oar of your ‘varsity eight,’ or ‘eleven,’ whichever it is. I created you for the hero of this story; and I will not submit to having you queer it. I have tried to make you a typical young New York gentleman of the highest social station and breeding. You have no reason to complain of my treatment to you. Amy Ffolliott, the girl you are to win, is a prize for any man to be thankful for, and cannot be equalled for beauty–provided the story is illustrated by the right artist. I do not understand why you should try to spoil everything. I had thought you were a gentleman.”

“What it is you are objecting to, old man?” asked Van Sweller, in a surprised tone.

“To your dining at—,” I answered. [FOOTNOTE: See advertising column, “Where to Dine Well,” in the daily newspapers.] “The pleasure would be yours, no doubt, but the responsibility would fall upon me. You intend deliberately to make me out a tout for a restaurant. Where you dine tonight has not the slightest connection with the thread of our story. You know very well that the plot requires that you be in front of the Alhambra Opera House at 11:30 where you are to rescue Miss Ffolliott a second time as the fire engine crashes into her cab. Until that time your movements are immaterial to the reader. Why can’t you dine out of sight somewhere, as many a hero does, instead of insisting upon an inapposite and vulgar exhibition of yourself?”