“My boy ... come in ... my God, you’re all wet ... you look frail, too.”  A pity shone in his eyes.  “Minnie, call up Ally Merton ...” turning to me, “I have, as you can see, no clothes to fit you ... but Ally might have ... he’s about your size, but he carries a trifle more meat on his bones....

“Come in and dry yourself before the fire till he gets over.”

We sat before the gas-fire of artificial logs.

“Minnie, will you make a cup of tea for this—­poor boy,” and he lowered his voice at the last two words, realising that I was hearing, too.

“Yes, Jarv!”

* * * * *

I sat at the table in the dining room.  Jarvis Alexander Mackworth sat on the piano-stool, again playing the piano in rhythm rather than in accompaniment with the records ... it was Caruso now....

“A glorious voice, isn’t it, young man?” Mackworth asked, as I ate voraciously of the cold roast set before me ... of the delicious white bread and fresh dairy butter, just from the churn of some neighbouring farmer.

“I know nothing much about music,” he continued, “—­just appreciate it ... —­seems to me that’s what we need now, more than anything else ... appreciation of the arts....  I like to sit here and pick out the melodies on the piano as the tune runs on.  It inspires me.  The precious people, the aesthetic upstarts, make fun of Edison and his ’canned music,’ as they call it ... but I say Edison is one of the great forces for culture in America to-day.  Everybody can’t go to New York, London, Paris, Bayreuth ... not to Chicago even....

“Beauty must come to Osageville, since Osageville cannot come to Beauty.”

I was charmed.

“Mr. Mackworth, you are a great man,” I said.

* * * * *

A ring at the bell.  Ally Merton....

“Ally, this is Mr. John Gregory, poet at large, Villon of American Literature ... let us hope, some day a little more of the Whittier ...  Ally—­” and the speaker turned to me, “Ally Merton is my right hand man ... my best reporter....”

He took Merton aside, in private talk....  Ally looked me over with a keen, swift glance that appraised me from head to foot instantly ... sharply but not hostilely ... as one who takes in a situation in a comprehensive instant.

“Yes, Mr. Mackworth, I can do it easily ... if they’ll fit him.”

There was an impersonality, however, about Merton’s cryptic words that annoyed me.

“You are going home with Ally, John,” Mackworth said to me, using my familiar name for the first time, “and borrow a suit of his clothes ... and you are coming back with him to dinner ... where you’ll meet a very famous person—­Miss Clara Martin.”

* * * * *

Ally’s blue serge suit was too short in the legs and arms for me ... otherwise it fitted.  His gentleness and unobtrusive quietness entered into me, along with the putting on of his apparel.  He led me upstairs in his house.