"None in the least--if I accept the invitation. That is the natural acknowledgment of their kindness. Surely my company is worth my dinner. It is far more trouble to me to put on black clothes and a white choker and go to their house, than it is for them to ask me, or, in a house like theirs, to have the necessary preparations made for receiving me in a manner befitting their dignity. I do violence to my own feelings in going: is not that enough? You know how much I prefer a chop with my wife alone to the grandest dinner the grandest of her grand relations could give me." "Now, don't you make game of my grand relations. I'm not sure that you haven't far grander relations yourself, only you say so little about them, they might all have been transported for housebreaking. Tell me honestly, don't you think it natural, if a friend asks you to dinner, that you should ask him again?" "Yes, if it would give him any pleasure. But just imagine your Cousin Morley dining at our table. Do you think he would enjoy it?" "Of course we must have somebody in to help Jemima." "And somebody to wait, I suppose?" "Yes, of course, Percivale." "And what Thackeray calls cold balls handed about?" "Well, I wouldn't have them cold." "But they would be." I was by this time so nearly crying, that I said nothing here. "My love," he resumed, "I object to the whole thing. It's all false together. I have not the least disinclination to asking a few friends who would enjoy being received in the same style as your father or my brother; namely, to one of our better dinners, and perhaps something better to drink than I can afford every day; but just think with what uneasy compassion Mr. Morley would regard our poor ambitions, even if you had an occasional cook and an undertaker's man. And what would he do without his glass of dry sherry after his soup, and his hock and champagne later, not to mention his fine claret or tawny port afterwards? I don't know how to get these things good enough for him without laying in a stock; and, that you know, would be as absurd as it is impossible." "Oh, you gentlemen always think so much of the wine!" "Believe me, it is as necessary to Mr. Morley's comfort as the dainties you would provide him with. Indeed, it would be a cruelty to ask him. He would not, could not, enjoy it." "If he didn't like it, he needn't come again," I said, cross with the objections of which I could not but see the justice. "Well, I must say you have an odd notion of hospitality," said my bear. "You may be certain," he resumed, after a moment's pause, "that a man so well aware of his own importance will take it far more as a compliment that you do not presume to invite him to your house, but are content to enjoy his society when he asks you to his." "I don't choose to take such an inferior position," I said.