Here was his chance to shine, to show Sir Maurice his social mettle.
He could have wished that the party had been larger.

They were only a dozen all told: Mr.Carruthers, the squire of Little Deeping, the vicar and his wife, the higher mathematician, father of Wiggins, Mrs.
Blenkinsop and Mrs.Morton, and Wiggins himself, who had spent most of the afternoon with Erebus.

Captain Baster would have preferred thirty or forty, but none the less he fell to work with a will.
Mrs.Dangerfield had taken advantage of the Indian summer afternoon to have tea in the garden; and it gave him room to expand.

He was soon the life and soul of the gathering.

He was humorous with the vicar about the church, and with the squire about the dulling effect of the country on the intelligence.