“Yes, I'll wear 'em,” he answered, snatching at his hairbrush and beginning to brush his damp hair. It was a wooden-backed brush that Pearson had found in his Gladstone bag and shudderingly laid in readiness on the dressing-table. “I guess they're all right, ain't they?” “Oh, quite right, sir, quite,” Pearson ventured--“for morning wear.” “Morning?” said Tembarom, brushing vigorously. “Not night?” “Black, sir,” most delicately hinted Pearson, “is--more usual--in the evening--in England.” After which he added, “So to speak,” with a vague hope that the mollifying phrase might counteract the effect of any apparently implied aspersion on colors preferred in America. Tembarom ceased brushing his hair, and looked at him in good-natured desire for information. “Frock-coats or claw-hammer?” he asked. Despite his natural anxiety, and in the midst of it, Pearson could not but admit that he had an uncondemnatory voice and a sort of young way with him which gave one courage. But he was not quite sure of “claw-hammer.” “Frock-coats for morning dress and afternoon wear, sir,” he ventured. “The evening cut, as you know, is--” “Claw-hammer. Swallow-tail, I guess you say here,” Tembarom ended for him, quite without hint of rancor, he was rejoiced to see. “Yes, sir,” said Pearson. The ceremony of dressing proved a fearsome thing as it went on. Pearson moved about deftly and essayed to do things for the new Mr. Temple Barholm which the new Mr. Temple Barholm had never heard of a man not doing for himself. He reached for things Pearson was about to hand to him or hold for him. He unceremoniously achieved services for himself which it was part of Pearson's manifest duty to perform. They got into each other's way; there was even danger sometimes of their seeming to snatch things from each other, to Pearson's unbounded horror. Mr. Temple Barholm did not express any irritation whatsoever misunderstandings took place, but he held his mouth rather close-shut, and Pearson, not aware that he did this as a precaution against open grinning or shouts of laughter as he found himself unable to adjust himself to his attendant's movements, thought it possible that he was secretly annoyed and regarded the whole matter with disfavor. But when the dressing was at an end and he stood ready to go down in all his innocent ignoring of speckled tweed and brown necktie, he looked neither flurried nor out of humor, and he asked a question in a voice which was actually friendly. It was a question dealing with an incident which had aroused much interest in the servants' hall as suggesting a touch of mystery. “Mr. Strangeways came yesterday all right, didn't he?” he inquired.