Another comforting hope, which was sooner lost in full fruition, was in the early arrival of his dress-suit. Fully-arrayed, he spent many hours before the mirror in his room at the hotel, endeavoring to look like some of the gentlemen whom he had seen at the Tramlay reception. Little though he admired Marge on general principles, he did not hesitate to conform himself as nearly as possible to that gentleman’s splendid composure. Strolling into a theatre one evening on a “general admission” ticket, which entitled him to the privilege of leaning against a wall, he saw quite a number of men in evening dress, and he improved the opportunity to study the comparative effects of different styles of collars and shirt-fronts. Finally he ventured to appear at the theatre in evening dress himself, and from the lack of special attention he justly flattered himself that he did not carry himself unlike other men. He also made the important discovery that Judge Dickman’s custom of buttoning his swallow-tailed coat at the waist, and displaying a yellow silk handkerchief in the fulness thereof, had been abandoned in the metropolis. At last the long-hoped-for evening arrived, and Phil was fully dressed and uncomfortable before sunset. He had already learned, by observation, that well-dressed men kept their faces closely shaved, and he had experimented, not without an inward groan at his extravagance, in what to him were the mysteries of hair-dressing. He ventured into the streets as soon as darkness had fairly fallen, made his way to the vicinity of the Dinon residence, and from a safe distance reconnoitred the house with the purpose, quite as common in the country as in town, of not being among the earliest arrivals. So long did he watch without seeing even a single person or carriage approach the door that there came to him the horrible fear that perhaps for some reason the affair had been postponed. About nine o’clock, however, his gaze was rewarded by a single carriage; another followed shortly, and several others came in rapid succession: so a quarter of an hour later he made his own entry. On this occasion he was not unable to translate the instructions, as to the locality of the gentlemen’s dressing-room, imparted by the servant at the door; but, having reached the general receptacle of coats, hats, and sticks, he was greatly puzzled to know why a number of gentlemen were standing about doing nothing. By the time he learned that most of them were merely waiting for their respective feminine charges to descend with them, a clock in the room struck ten, and as Phil counted the strokes and remembered how often he had been half roused from his first doze beneath his bedclothes at home by just that number, he yawned by force of habit and half wished he never had left Haynton.