He read the words again, and then read the coupon.
"Insulted! Insulted by a man I have ever befriended. He must apologize.
I"ll shake the words from his throat. I"ll--I"ll not eat another mouthful till I have his apology! Turkish bath! Why----" and Mr. Pillet walked violently--gesticulating, with the open note in his hand--up and down the creaking floor of his apartment. He did not finish his breakfast, but put on his hat--perhaps forgetting an overcoat--and hurried down-stairs.
Colonel Killiam took breakfast at the "Furlough Club." He perused Mr.
Grapewine"s note with a majestic condescension, and decided to go to the dinner, where, of course, those present would recognize his superior rank. Each sentence he read was sandwiched between two sips of chocolate, and he reached the latter clause only by slow degrees. When he got that far, the colonel started to his feet and sternly summoned the waiter.
"Ask Major Fobbs to call at my table as soon as he can."
The waiter obeyed, and Major Fobbs followed him back to the colonel"s table.
"Major," said the colonel, "will you please spell those words?"
"T-u-r-k-i-s-h b-a-t-h, Turkish bath," read the major.
"Thank heaven, I am still rational!" said the colonel. "I feared reason was dethroned. Thank you, major. Good-day," and Colonel Killiam strode out of the room, rigid with indignation.
Old Mrs. Gildenfenny received her invitation over a breakfast-table that stood against her bedside. The note was handed in by an aged servant, who thereupon leaned over her mistress"s shoulder and helped her to read it. Mrs. Gildenfenny was an energetic old lady; but she loved, most of all things in the world, her idle hour in bed of a morning with a smoking meal of hot-cakes and coffee at her elbow. She disliked, most of all things in the world, to be robbed of this comfort, and she hated the being who committed such an offence with a vehemence which was her chief characteristic. The two old women read Mrs. Gildenfenny"s note aloud en duet, with now and then a pleased comment. Mrs. Gildenfenny said she would wear her green silk, and gave directions, as she read on, about her shoes, her hair, her linen and twenty articles of her toilet that came into her mind at mention of dining out.
"Lord a-mercy!" says Mrs. Gildenfenny, when she had read a little further; "Lord a-mercy! if I"m not decent, why does he ask me? Why don"t he say, at once, "Please wash yourself before you come; and if you can"t afford soap and water, here"s a ticket"? Susan, get me up! Dress me right away! I must have this explained."
"But your breakfast, ma"am," says Susan.
"Eat? eat? with such a thing on my mind? No! I"ll go at once to his house!" and in a few moments Mrs. Gildenfenny also went out.
Mr. and Mrs. Totty were served with their invitation over a breakfast-table where meekness and humility were administered with the rolls and poured out with the weak cambric tea of the little ones. The meal was an impressive ceremony, where discourses on duty and against excess of the palate were often the only relishes present.
Mr. Totty would paint the miseries of the epicure, and Mrs.
Totty those of the dyspeptic, in words of eloquence which made milk-and-sugar-and-water a liquid of priceless moral value, though they never succeeded in strengthening its nutritive effects. While the eldest Totty had answered the postman"s summons, Mr. Totty was exhorting his youngest son to avoid b.u.t.ter to his bread as a pitfall through which he must eventually come to a state of depravity too dreadful to be put in words. He opened the envelope very deliberately, supposing it to contain a bill, but with a smile on his benevolent face which betokened a reverent spirit under suffering. As he read the opening lines and went onward, the smile pa.s.sed through the stages of surprise, gratification, appet.i.te, eagerness, and then pa.s.sed into a look of doubt. He laughed in a gently acid way, and said,--
"My dear, Mr. Grapewine invites us to a Christmas dinner, which, of course, we could not attend----"
"Why not?" exclaims Mrs. Totty, eagerly.
"Which it would do gross injury to our principles to attend," continued Mr. Totty; "and I will call on him, with our refusal, this morning, myself."
Mrs. Totty resignedly helped him on with his overcoat, and submitted to the mildly spoken decree which was law in the house of the Tottys.
In a short time her husband went out with the invitation in his pocket and a look of unusual benevolence in his eyes.
Dr. Tuggle and lady read the invitation together over their breakfast-table, and fell to quarrelling so dreadfully about the purport of Mr. Grapewine"s singular request, that the doctor rushed from the house, threatening to pull Mr. Grapewine"s nose, and to divorce himself forever from his hateful spouse.
On this same morning Mr. Grapewine"s bell was rung five times, at very short intervals, in the most tremendously violent manner, and five loud altercations took place in the hall between the servant and the five callers.
"Where is he?"
"Bring him down, or I"ll go up after him!"
"What does he mean by it?"
"Insult a respectable lady!"
"Let me catch him, that"s all!"
"Where has he gone?"
"I"ll send him a challenge by Fobbs!"
"Where"s his wife?"
This was what Mr. Grapewine, listening at the top of the stairs, heard in a confused tumult in his parlor. He could not understand it. He was extremely agitated; but the servant insisted on his going down, and he did so, clad in a loose morning dress and slippers. As he entered the parlor-door he was met by four furious gentlemen and an elderly lady, flourishing his invitations in their hands and crying hotly for explanations.
"What do you mean, sir? What do you mean by alluding to my--my toilet in this impertinent manner?" said Colonel Killiam.
The light began to flow in upon Mr. Grapewine"s puzzled understanding.
He confessed his mistake, and would have urged them to forget it and come to the dinner as if nothing had happened, but before he could do so he found himself alone in the room, with five notes of invitation on the floor at his feet, and nothing but the remembrance of one of the best ideas he had ever had in his life.
END OF BOOK II.