His tone made me suspicious.

“Of course you'll be there yourself.”

“Well, I'll certainly try. What I called up about is — — ”

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “How about saying you'll come?”

“Well, the fact is — the truth of the matter is that I'm staying with some people up here in Greenwich and they rather expect me to be with them tomorrow. In fact there's a sort of picnic or something. Of course I'll do my very best to get away.”

I ejaculated an unrestrained “Huh!” and he must have heard me for he went on nervously:

“What I called up about was a pair of