“Well, my son, how do you find yourself this morning?” the merchant asked, throwing aside the newspaper and stretching himself back in his chair.

“First-rate; but I had quite a time placing myself before I was fully awake.”

“I guess that’s true of nearly everybody who comes to Chicago.  It makes no difference how wide-awake a man thinks he is, he will find when he comes to this city that he has been nodding.”

Breakfast was announced.  Ellen took Henry’s hand and said:  “Come, this is your place here by me.  Mother told me to sit near you; she wants me to check any threatened outbreak of your foreign peculiarities.”

“Ellen, what do you mean?  I didn’t say anything of the sort, Henry.  It could make no difference where my mother’s people were brought up.  The Craigs always knew how to conduct themselves.”

“Oh, yes,” Witherspoon spoke up, “the Craigs were undoubtedly all right, but we are dealing with live issues now.  Henry, we’ll go down to the store this morning”—­

“So soon?” his wife interrupted.

“So soon?” the merchant repeated.  “What do you mean by so soon?  Won’t it be time to go?”

“Oh, yes, I suppose so.”

“And where do I come in?” asked the girl.

“You can go if you insist,” said Witherspoon, “but there are matters that he and I must arrange at once.  We’ve got to fix up some sort of statement for the newspapers; can’t keep this thing a secret, you know, and a tailor must be consulted.  Your clothes are all right, my son,” he quickly added, “but—­well, you understand.”

Henry understood, but he had thought when he left New Orleans that he was well dressed.  And now for a moment he felt ragged.

“When shall we have the reception?” Ellen asked.

“The reception,” Henry repeated, looking up in alarm.

“Why, listen to him,” the girl cried.  “Don’t you know that we must give a reception?  Why, we couldn’t get along without it; society would cut us dead.  Think how nice it will be—­invitations with ’To meet Mr. Henry Witherspoon’ on them.”

“Must I go through that?” Henry asked, appealing to Mrs. Witherspoon.

“Of course you must, but not until the proper time.”

“Why, it will be just splendid,” the girl declared.  “You ought to have seen me the night society smiled and said, ’Well, we will now permit you to be one of us.’  Oh, the idea of not showing you off, now that we’ve caught you, is ridiculous.  You needn’t appeal to mother.  You couldn’t keep her from parading you up and down in the presence of her friends.”

He was looking at Mrs. Witherspoon.  She smiled with more of humor than he had seen her face express, and thus delivered her opinion:  “If we had no reception, people would think that we were ashamed of our son.”

“All right, mother; if you want your friends to meet the wild man of Borneo who has just come to town, I have nothing more to say.  Your word shall be a law with me; but I must tell you that whenever you make arrangements into which I enter, you must remember that society and I have had scarcely a hat-tipping acquaintance.  I may know many things that society never even dreamed of, but some of society’s simplest phases are dangerous mysteries to me.”