Stover at Yale by Owen Johnson

When a freshman has been invited to dinner and in a rash moment accepted the invitation and lived through the agony, he usually pays his party call (always supposing that he has imbibed a certain amount of home etiquette) sometime before graduation. In the balance of freshman year the obligation possesses him like a specter of remorse; in sophomore year he remembers it by fits and starts, always in the middle of the week, in time to forget it by Sunday; in junior year he is tempted once or twice to use it as an excuse for sporting his newly won high hat and frock-coat, but fears he has offended too deeply; and in senior year he watches the local society columns for departures, and rushes around to deposit his cards, with an expression of surprise and regret when informed at the door that the family is away.

Dink Stover temporized, confronted with the awful ordeal of arraying himself in his Sunday prison garb and stiffly traversing the long, tricky, rug-strewn hall of the Story's, with the chance of suddenly showing his whole person to a dozen inquisitive eyes. He let the first Sunday pass without a qualm, as being too unnecessarily close and familiar. On the second Sunday he decided to wait until he had received the suit made of goods purchased at a miraculous bargain from the unsuspecting Yankee drummer. The third Sunday he completely forgot his duties as a man of fashion. On the fourth Sunday, in a panic, he bound his neck in a shackling high collar, donned his new suit, which looked as lovely as everything that is new and untried can look, and went post-haste in search of Hungerford as a companion in misery and a post to which to cling. To his horror, Hungerford had paid his visit, and felt very doubtful as to the propriety of repeating it before having been again fed.