"I'll think over your advice, Cousin Raymond," said Fred with a twinkle of fun in his eyes. "Were you going to call at our house?" asked Raymond. "Not this evening." "I don't care to have you call me Cousin Raymond." "I won't, then. I am just as much ashamed of the relationship as you are." "If that's a joke it's a very poor one," said Raymond, provoked. "It's no joke, I assure you." Fred seemed so cool and composed that his cousin was nonplussed. He started as if to go on, but curiosity got the better of him. "You haven't told me where you were going in that absurd dress," he said. "I don't see anything absurd in it. I am going to a party." "To a party? what party?" "Miss Rose Wainwright's." "What, the daughter of Mr. Wainwright, the broker?" asked Raymond, incredulously. "Yes." Now it happened that Raymond had been particularly anxious to get an invitation to this party. Some of his friends at the Columbia Grammar School were going and he had intrigued, but unsuccessfully, to get a card of invitation. The idea that his cousin--an obscure train boy--had succeeded where he had failed seemed absurd and preposterous. It intensified his disappointment, and made him foolishly jealous of Fred. "There must be some mistake about this," he said harshly. "You only imagine that you are invited." "I am not quite a fool, Cousin Raymond--excuse me, Mr. Ferguson. What do you say to this?" He drew from his pocket a note of invitation requesting the favor of Mr. Fred Fenton's company at Miss Rose Wainwright's New Year's party. "How did she happen to send you this card?" asked Raymond, his surprise increasing. "You don't mean to say you know Rose Wainwright?" "Yes, I know her. I spent an evening at the house nearly two weeks ago, and played backgammon with her." "I never heard the like. Have any bootblacks been invited?" "I don't know. The young lady didn't tell me who were coming." "Take my advice and don't go." "Why not?" "You will be about as much at home at a fashionable party as a cat would be at the opera." "But I have accepted the invitation." "That won't matter. You can write a note tomorrow saying that you thought it wiser to stay away." "Besides there is another objection." "What is that?" "Rose expects me to dance with her." "You dance!" "Certainly, why not?" "I begin to think you are crazy, Fred Fenton." "I don't see why." "Of course you can't dance." "Of course I can. I am a pupil of Professor Saville. But I must bid you good evening, as it is time I was at the party." Raymond gazed after Fred as he walked toward the scene of the evening's enjoyment with corrugated brows. "I never heard of anything more ridiculous," he muttered. "It's like a beggar on horseback. Think of a poor boy like Fred figuring at Rose Wainwright's party. It is disgusting." Fred would not have had his share of human nature if he had not enjoyed the discomfiture of his haughty cousin.