He was a good deal excited. Also, he was a good deal nervous. He remembered reading somewhere once that when calling you were supposed to present your visiting card to the maid or the butler or whoever it was that opened the door to you. Tom had no visiting card, very naturally, and he wondered whether the lack of it would matter very much. He might explain to the maid that he had accidentally left his cards at home in his other suit. Then he reflected that when you carried visiting cards you were presumed to have more than two suits, and that it would be better to say that he had left the cards on his bureau. Then, having apologised in such fashion, he would give his name and ask to see Mrs. Morris. He guessed that would be all right. He rather hoped, though, it would be a man instead of a maid who answered the door. He could make his explanation more easily to a man. He wondered whether Sidney Morris would mind his coming. He hoped Sidney wouldn’t think he had suggested the visit. He wouldn’t think for a moment of forcing his acquaintance on a chap like Sidney Morris, who was one of the most popular and sought-after fellows in school! And besides, Tom reflected, the Morrises must be very well-off, and it didn’t seem likely that Sidney would care to have much to do with a fellow who worked in a store. Of course it was perfectly bully of Mrs. Morris to want him to know her son, but he feared that Mrs. Morris hadn’t stopped to consider the difference in their positions. The car seemed to crawl through town, and Tom, in a fever of impatience lest his visit be timed too late, glanced at his watch every two or three blocks. Finally, though, the conductor called Alameda Avenue and Tom descended. It wasn’t hard to find the Morris residence, for the number of the house was plainly in view on each of the round electric globes that flanked the gate. A short path led to a stone-pillared porch. The house was not so grand and impressive as he had feared it might be. It was of stone as to the lower story and shingles above and had many dormers of different sizes. But Tom didn’t have time to receive more than a fleeting impression of its outward appearance then, for a dozen strides took him to the door. There he paused a moment, in the soft glow of an overhead light, to rehearse his speech to the maid or the butler. Finally he pressed the button beside the wide doorway and waited. An inner door opened and Tom saw disappointedly through a meshed curtain that it was a woman who was answering his summons. But when the outer door gave way it was Mrs. Morris herself who stood there. In the background a maid in cap and apron hovered uncertainly for a minute and disappeared. Tom, in his surprise, almost recited his piece about the visiting cards to Mrs. Morris, and would have doubtless had not that lady held out her hand and taken the conduct of affairs at once. Before he knew it, Tom was inside, fumbling with his hat and holding out his bundle insistently.