DEAR MADAM,—­We hear from our friend Sir William Wrenn that some folks are saying that to-day is not your birthday & want to stop your celebration, so if you should need somebody to make them believe to-day is your birthday we have sent our secretary, Sir Percival Montague.  Sir William Wrenn will hide him behind his chair, and if they bother you just call for Sir Percival and he will tell them.  Permit us, dear Lady Nash, to wish you all the greetings of the season, and in close we beg to remain, as ever,
                              Yours sincerely,
                                        DUKE VERE DE VERE.

He was very tired.  When he lay down for a minute, with a pillow tucked over his head, he was almost asleep in ten seconds.  But he sprang up, washed his prickly eyes with cold water, and began to dress.  He was shy of the knickers and golf-stockings, but it was the orange tie that gave him real alarm.  He dared it, though, and went downstairs to make sure they were setting the table with glory befitting the party.

As he went through the common room he watched the three or four groups scattered through it.  They seemed to take his clothes as a matter of course.  He was glad.  He wanted so much to be a credit to Istra.

Returning from the dining-room to the common room, he passed a group standing in a window recess and looking away from him.  He overheard: 

“Who is the remarkable new person with the orange tie and the rococo buckle on his jacket belt—­the one that just went through?  Did you ever see anything so funny!  His collar didn’t come within an inch and a half of fitting his neck.  He must be a poet.  I wonder if his verses are as jerry-built as his garments!”

Mr. Wrenn stopped.

Another voice: 

“And the beautiful lack of development of his legs!  It’s like the good old cycling days, when every draper’s assistant went bank-holidaying....  I don’t know him, but I suppose he’s some tuppeny-ha’p’ny illustrator.”

“Or perhaps he has convictions about fried bananas, and dines on a bean saute.  O Aengusmere!  Shades of Aengus!”

“Not at all.  When they look as gentle as he they always hate the capitalists as a militant hates a cabinet minister.  He probably dines on the left ear of a South-African millionaire every evening before exercise at the barricades....  I say, look over there; there’s a real artist going across the green.  You can tell he’s a real artist because he’s dressed like a navvy and—­”

Mr. Wrenn was walking away, across the common room, quite sure that every one was eying him with amusement.  And it was too late to change his clothes.  It was six already.

He stuck out his jaw, and remembered that he had planned to hide the “letter from the duke” in Istra’s napkin that it might be the greater surprise.  He sat down at their table.  He tucked the letter into the napkin folds.  He moved the vase of orchids nearer the center of the table, and the table nearer the open window giving on the green.  He rebuked himself for not being able to think of something else to change.  He forgot his clothes, and was happy.