You ask him to dine with you on Thursday to meet a few people who are
anxious to know him.
"Now don't make a muddle of it," you say, recollectful of former mishaps,
"and come on the Wednesday."
He laughs good-naturedly as he hunts through the room for his diary.
"Shan't be able to come Wednesday," he says, "shall be at the Mansion
House, sketching dresses, and on Friday I start for Scotland, so as to be
at the opening of the Exhibition on Saturday. It's bound to be all right
this time. Where the deuce is that diary! Never mind, I'll make a note
of it on this--you can see me do it."
You stand over him while he writes the appointment down on a sheet of
foolscap, and watch him pin it up over his desk. Then you come away
contented.
"I do hope he'll turn up," you say to your wife on the Thursday evening,
while dressing.
"Are you sure you made it clear to him?" she replies, suspiciously, and
you instinctively feel that whatever happens she is going to blame you
for it.
Eight o'clock arrives, and with it the other guests. At half-past eight
your wife is beckoned mysteriously out of the room, where the parlour-
maid informs her that the cook has expressed a determination, in case of
further delay, to wash her hands, figuratively speaking, of the whole
affair.
Your wife, returning, suggests that if the dinner is to be eaten at all
it had better be begun. She evidently considers that in pretending to
expect him you have been merely playing a part, and that it would have
been manlier and more straightforward for you to have admitted at the
beginning that you had forgotten to invite him.
During the soup and the fish you recount anecdotes of his unpunctuality.
By the time the _entree_ arrives the empty chair has begun to cast a
gloom over the dinner, and with the joint the conversation drifts into
talk about dead relatives.
On Friday, at a quarter past eight, he dashes to the door and rings
violently. Hearing his voice in the hall, you go to meet him.
"Sorry I'm late," he sings out cheerily. "Fool of a cabman took me to
Alfred Place instead of--"
"Well, what do you want now you are come?" you interrupt, feeling
anything but genially inclined towards him. He is an old friend, so you
can be rude to him.
He laughs, and slaps you on the shoulder.
"Why, my dinner, my dear boy, I'm starving."
"Oh," you grunt in reply. "Well, you go and get it somewhere else, then.
You're not going to have it here."
"What the devil do you mean?" he says. "You asked me to dinner."
"I did nothing of the kind," you tell him. "I asked you to dinner on
Thursday, not on Friday."
He stares at you incredulously.
"How did I get Friday fixed in my mind?" inquiringly.
"Because yours is the sort of mind that would get Friday firmly fixed
into it, when Thursday was the day," you explain. "I thought you had to
be off to Edinburgh to-night," you add.
"Great Scott!" he cries, "so I have."
And without another word he dashes out, and you hear him rushing down the
road, shouting for the cab he has just dismissed.
As you return to your study you reflect that he will have to travel all
the way to Scotland in evening dress, and will have to send out the hotel
porter in the morning to buy him a suit of ready-made clothes, and are
glad.
Matters work out still more awkwardly when it is he who is the host. I
remember being with him on his house-boat one day. It was a little after
twelve, and we were sitting on the edge of the boat, dangling our feet in
the river--the spot was a lonely one, half-way between Wallingford and
Day's Lock. Suddenly round the bend appeared two skiffs, each one
containing six elaborately-dressed persons. As soon as they caught sight
of us they began waving handkerchiefs and parasols.
"Hullo!" I said, "here's some people hailing you."
"Oh, they all do that about here," he answered, without looking up. "Some
beanfeast from Abingdon, I expect."
The boats draw nearer. When about two hundred yards off an elderly
gentleman raised himself up in the prow of the leading one and shouted to
us.
McQuae heard his voice, and gave a start that all but pitched him into
the water.
"Good God!" he cried, "I'd forgotten all about it."
"About what?" I asked.
"Why, it's the Palmers and the Grahams and the Hendersons. I've asked
them all over to lunch, and there's not a blessed thing on board but two
mutton chops and a pound of potatoes, and I've given the boy a holiday."
Another day I was lunching with him at the Junior Hogarth, when a man
named Hallyard, a mutual friend, strolled across to us.
"What are you fellows going to do this afternoon?" he asked, seating
himself the opposite side of the table.
"I'm going to stop here and write letters," I answered.
"Come with me if you want something to do," said McQuae. "I'm going to
drive Leena down to Richmond." ("Leena" was the young lady he
recollected being engaged to. It transpired afterwards that he was
engaged to three girls at the time. The other two he had forgotten all
about.) "It's a roomy seat at the back."
"Oh, all right," said Hallyard, and they went away together in a hansom.
An hour and a half later Hallyard walked into the smoking-room looking
depressed and worn, and flung himself into a chair.
"I thought you were going to Richmond with McQuae," I said.
"So did I," he answered.
"Had an accident?" I asked.
"Yes."
He was decidedly curt in his replies.
"Cart upset?" I continued.
"No, only me."
His grammar and his nerves seemed thoroughly shaken.