At first Fate merely willed that Sir Peter should take a journey up to town.  Sir Peter’s serviceable tweed suit, that had lasted him a good five years, was beginning to go at the corners.  We know Stanistreet’s opinion of Sir Peter’s taste in dress; it was only a coarser expression of the views held by his wife.  But for her frank and friendly criticism, Sir Peter, holding change in abhorrence, would have worn that tweed suit another five years at the very least.

“It’s a capital suit,” said he.

“Perfectly disgraceful,” said she.  “Look at your elbow.”

“Ordinary wear and tear.”

“Particularly tear.”  And while she was speaking Sir Peter had rubbed the worn place into a jagged hole.  Sir Peter sighed.  He was much attached to that tweed suit; it knew his ways, and had adapted itself to all the little eccentricities of his figure.  After five years there is a certain intimacy between a man and his suit.  However, there was no blinking the fact—­the suit was doomed.  Sir Peter’s man seized the occasion for a general overhauling of his master’s wardrobe, with the result that Sir Peter had to go up by an early train the next morning to consult Mr. Vance, his tailor.

Sir Peter was being measured up and down and all round him, while Mr. Vance stood by, note-book in hand, and took minutes of his case.

“A little wider round the waist, Vance, since you made my first coat for me thirty years ago.”

Sir Peter was swaying on his toes, and supporting himself by a finger-tip laid on the shoulder of Vance’s man.

“Not quite so long ago as that, Sir Peter.”

“Must be, must be; you’ve been here more than thirty years.”

Sir Peter prided himself on his memory, and was a stickler for the actual fact.

“I’m afraid not, sir.”  The voice of Vance was charged with melancholy and delicate regret.  “We were only Binks and Co. in those days.”

“Nonsense.  Why, you measured me yourself, Vance.”

“An impossibility, sir.”

Mr. Vance leaned against a pillar of cloth, like one requiring support in a very painful situation.  It was agony for him to contradict Sir Peter.  But truth is great.  It prevailed.

“I was in the City then, sir, serving my time at Tyson’s.”

He dropped his eyes.  He had crushed Sir Peter with proof, but he was too polite to be a witness of his discomfiture.

“Tyson’s—­Tyson’s.”  Sir Peter’s tongue uttered the name mechanically.  His mind no longer followed Vance; it was busy with the loveliest woman in Leicestershire.

Mr. Vance smiled.  “I daresay they know that name pretty well in your county, sir.”

“The name,” said Sir Peter, blushing a little at his own thoughts, “the name is not uncommon.”

“It’s the same family, though, sir.”

“Really—­” Sir Peter was a little startled this time—­“you don’t mean to say—­”