My library, as I had feared, was appropriated for the presents, and for several days I transacted the business of State at the wash-hand-stand in my dressing-room, while a stream of callers, ranging from the members of a Working Men's Club in which Dilly was fitfully interested, down to an organisation of Kitty's whose exact title I can never recall (but which Dicky, on first seeing them, immediately summed up as "The Hundred Worst Women"), filed solemnly past rows of filigree coffee-services, silver-backed hair-brushes, and art pen-wipers. Of the bride-elect I saw little, and when I did, she was usually standing, in a state of considerable _deshabille_, amid a kneeling group of myrmidons, who, with mouths filled with pins and brows seamed with anxiety, were remorselessly building her into some edifice of shimmering silk and filmy lace, oblivious of their victim's plaintive intimations that she was fit to drop. Dicky invited Robin to be his best man, a proceeding which, while it roused some surprise among those who were expecting him to fix upon a friend of longer standing and greater distinction, showed his good sense, for my secretary proved himself a model of organisation and helpfulness. Although born and reared up in the straitest sect of some Scottish denomination, about which I am unable to particularise beyond the fact that they regarded the use of harmoniums in churches as "the worship of men's feet," he betrayed a surprising knowledge of Anglican ritual and stage effect. On the wedding morning, having left the bridegroom securely tucked up in bed, under strict orders not to get up till he was called, Robin personally conducted a select party of those interested--Dolly, Dilly, another bridesmaid, and myself--to the church, where he showed us the exact positions of our entrances and exits; and then proceeded, with the assistance of Dolly, to plant hassocks about the chancel in such a manner as to leave us no doubts as to the whereabouts of our moorings (or "stances," as he called them) at the actual ceremony. The party was reinforced at this point by the arrival of no less a person than the bridegroom, who, having risen from his slumbers in defiance of Robin's injunctions, was now proceeding to infringe the laws of propriety by coming in search of his beloved four hours before he was entitled to do so. However, as Dilly rather pessimistically pointed out, it was probably the last time she would ever get a kind word out of him, so we gave them ten minutes together in the porch, while Robin interviewed vergers and Dolly intimidated perspiring persons with red carpets and evergreens.