The enumeration of the ingredients which were to make up the evening party to which William Jordan, Junior, had been bidden, and from whom no refusal would be taken, filled him with consternation, surprise, and dismay. Such an undertaking was so far outside his _milieu_, that for the time being, a journey to the moon or a distant planet seemed a light thing by comparison. Yet at first, he had not the courage to damp the ardour of his friend, Mr. Dodson, by explicitly stating that he had no wish to be present. That innate courtesy, which the rebuffs to which he was subjected hourly in the stern school of experience, did nothing to lessen, nor a steadily ripening judgment to minimize, forbade the unhappy young man from exposing his craven’s fears to his mentor. All the same, the problem of how to escape from so dread an ordeal without wounding the feelings of his friend, was never absent from his thoughts. “I--I am afraid, Jimmy,” he plucked up the courage to confess on the evening of the following day, “I--I cannot come to your p-p-party.” “You have got to come to my p-p-party, my son,” said Jimmy Dodson, with an amused absence of compromise. “I can take no refusal.” “Oh, n-n-n-no!” said the young man in blank despair. “Oh, y-y-y-yes! you old lunatic,” said his mentor indulgently. “They all know you are coming, and you don’t know how keen they are to meet you. When I told Joe Cox you could speak Greek like a native, you should have seen his face.” “Oh, b-b-but,” said the young man desperately, “I--I--I am not what you call--I--I am not what you call ‘up’ in these things!” “Up, be blowed!” said Mr. Dodson. “You have got to develop your social instinct a bit. You old lunatic, what have you got to be so serious about? Haven’t you ever been to a party before?” “Oh, n-n-no,” said William Jordan, Junior, with a scared face. “Then it is time you broke the ice,” said his mentor sternly. “Every chap has got to go out into society. You can’t get on in the world without you do.” “Oh, n-n-n-no,” protested the young man feebly.