“Why not buy some socks? I’m running a bit short of them.” “Now, laddie, laddie,” said Ukridge, reprovingly, “need we strike a jarring note? Is this the moment to fling your beastly socks in an old friend’s face? A broader-minded spirit is what I would like to see.” I was ten minutes late in arriving at the Regent Grill on the Wednesday of George Tupper’s invitation, and the spectacle of George in person standing bare-headed at the Piccadilly entrance filled me with guilty remorse. George was the best fellow in the world, but the atmosphere of the Foreign Office had increased the tendency he had always had from boyhood to a sort of precise fussiness, and it upset him if his affairs did not run exactly on schedule. The thought that my unpunctuality should have marred this great evening sent me hurrying towards him full of apologies. “Oh, there you are,” said George Tupper. “I say, it’s too bad——” “I’m awfully sorry. My watch——” “Ukridge!” cried George Tupper, and I perceived that it was not I who had caused his concern. “Isn’t he coming?” I asked, amazed. The idea of Ukridge evading a free meal was one of those that seem to make the solid foundations of the world rock. “He’s come. And he’s brought a girl with him!” “A _girl!_” “In pink, with yellow hair,” wailed George Tupper. “What am I to do?” I pondered the point. “It’s a weird thing for even Ukridge to have done,” I said, “but I suppose you’ll have to give her dinner.” “But the place is full of people I know, and this girl’s so—so spectacular.” I felt for him deeply, but I could see no way out of it. “You don’t think I could say I had been taken ill?” “It would hurt Ukridge’s feelings.” “I should enjoy hurting Ukridge’s feelings, curse him!” said George Tupper, fervently. “And it would be an awful slam for the girl, whoever she is.” George Tupper sighed. His was a chivalrous nature. He drew himself up as if bracing himself for a dreadful ordeal. “Oh, well, I suppose there’s nothing to do,” he said. “Come along. I left them drinking cocktails in the lounge.” George had not erred in describing Ukridge’s addition to the festivities as spectacular. Flamboyant would have been a suitable word. As she preceded us down the long dining-room, her arm linked in George Tupper’s—she seemed to have taken a liking to George—I had ample opportunity for studying her, from her patent-leather shoes to the mass of golden hair beneath her picture-hat. She had a loud, clear voice, and she was telling George Tupper the rather intimate details of an internal complaint which had recently troubled an aunt of hers. If George had been the family physician, she could not have been franker; and I could see a dull glow spreading over his shapely ears. Perhaps Ukridge saw it, too, for he seemed to experience a slight twinge of conscience.