_November 4, 1903._--One morning--it was the 4th of November--Bettesworth said, "I got a invitation out to a grand dinner to-night, down in the town. Veterans of the Crimea. But I shan't go. I'd sooner be at home and have a bit o' supper an' get to bed early.... No; it don't cost ye nothin'--an' plenty _of_ everything; spirits, good food, a very good _dinner_. Still, you can't go to these sort o' things without spendin' a shillin'. And then be about half the night. I don't care about it. If I was to go, 't'd upset me to-morrer." All this bewildered me. For one thing, it was plain that the fact of Bettesworth's having been a soldier was no secret after all. As he now went on to tell me, he had actually attended two previous dinners. Who were they, then, who knew his record, and got him his invitation? Who, indeed, was giving the dinner? Rumours of some such annual celebration, it is true, had reached me; but it was no public function. Even by name the promoters were unknown to me; and yet somehow they had known for several years before I did that my man had been a soldier in the Crimea. At the moment, however, it was Bettesworth's refusal of the invitation that most surprised me, although his alleged reasons were very good. He so loved good cheer, and he had so few opportunities of enjoying it--the Oddfellows' dinner was the only other chance he ever had in any year--that I immediately suspected him of having been swayed in this instance by something else besides prudence. He sounded over-virtuous. And presently it struck me that there might have been something offensive to him in the way the invitation was given. It had been received on the previous evening. He had just got round to the public-house, "'long of old White," when "a feller come in," inquiring for him. Bettesworth did not know the man; it was "somebody in a grey suit." "Stood me a glass of hot whisky-and-water, he did, and old White too." And, referring to Bettesworth's military service, "'What was ye?' he says. 'A man,' I says. He laughed and says, 'What are ye drinkin'?' 'Only a glass o' cold fo'penny,' I says." And Bettesworth seems to have said it in a very meek voice, subtly insinuating that "the feller" might stand something better. I inferred, further, that Bettesworth's conscience was now pricking him for some incivility he had shown in declining the invitation. At any rate, he made a lame attempt, not otherwise called for, to prove that a self-respecting man would not humble himself to anyone upon whom he was not dependent. He had evidently been the reverse of humble; and possibly the invitation was patronizing, and raised his ire.