But the next morning he contracted to give away the lifeboat to a syndicate of boatmen, headed by John their leader, for thirty-five pounds.  And he swore to himself that he would do that dinner properly, even if it cost him the whole price of the boat.  Then he met Mrs Cotterill coming out of a shop.  Mrs Cotterill, owing to a strange hazard of fate, began talking at once.  And Denry, as an old shorthand writer, instinctively calculated that not Thomas Allen Reed himself could have taken Mrs Cotterill down verbatim.  Her face tried to express pain, but pleasure shone out of it.  For she found herself in an exciting contretemps which she could understand.

“Oh, Mr Machin,” she said, “what do you think’s happened?  I don’t know how to tell you, I’m sure.  Here you’ve arranged for that dinner to-morrow and it’s all settled, and now Miss Earp telegraphs to our Nellie to say she’s coming to-morrow for a day or two with us.  You know Ruth and Nellie are such friends.  It’s like as if what must be, isn’t it?  I don’t know what to do, I do declare.  What ever will Ruth say at us leaving her all alone the first night she comes?  I really do think she might have——­”

“You must bring her along with you,” said Denry.

“But won’t you—­shan’t you—­won’t she—­won’t it——­”

“Not at all,” said Denry.  “Speaking for myself, I shall be delighted.”

“Well, I’m sure you’re very sensible,” said Mrs Cotterill.  “I was but saying to Mr Cotterill over breakfast—­I said to him——­”

“I shall ask Councillor Rhys-Jones to meet you,” said Denry.  “He’s one of the principal members of the Town Council here; Local Secretary of the Lifeboat Institution.  Great friend of mine.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Mrs Cotterill, “it’ll be quite an affair.”

It was.

Denry found to his relief that the only difficult part of arranging a dinner at the Majestic was the steeling of yourself to enter the gorgeous portals of the hotel.  After that, and after murmuring that you wished to fix up a little snack, you had nothing to do but listen to suggestions, each surpassing the rest in splendour, and say “Yes.”  Similarly with the greeting of a young woman who was once to you the jewel of the world.  You simply said, “Good-afternoon, how are you?” And she said the same.  And you shook hands.  And there you were, still alive!

The one defect of the dinner was that the men were not in evening dress.  (Denry registered a new rule of life:  Never travel without your evening dress, because you never know what may turn up.) The girls were radiantly white.  And after all there is nothing like white.  Mrs Cotterill was in black silk and silence.  And after all there is nothing like black silk.  There was champagne.  There were ices.  Nellie, not being permitted champagne, took her revenge in ice.  Denry had found an opportunity to relate to her the history of the Chocolate Remedy.