The Old Adam Part 14

"Gosh!" he privately exclaimed as he read: "Paid driver of taxicab 2-3-6."

He had forgotten the taxi. But he admired the _sang-froid_ of Wilkins's, which paid such trifles as a matter of course, without deigning to disturb a guest by an enquiry. Wilkins's rose again in his esteem.

The total of the bill exceeded thirteen pounds.

"All right," he said to the gentleman in waiting.

"Are you leaving to-day, sir?" the being permitted himself to ask.

"Of course I'm not leaving to-day! Haven't I hired an electric brougham for a week?" Edward Henry burst out. "But I suppose I'm ent.i.tled to know how much I'm spending!"

The gentleman in waiting humbly bowed, and departed.

Alone in the splendid chamber, Edward Henry drew out a swollen pocketbook and examined its crisp, crinkly contents, which made a beauteous and a rea.s.suring sight.

"Pooh!" he muttered.

He reckoned he would be living at the rate of about fifteen pounds a day, or five thousand five hundred a year. (He did not count the cost of his purchases, because they were in the nature of a capital expenditure.)

"Cheap!" he muttered. "For once I'm about living up to my income!"

The sensation was exquisite in its novelty.

He ordered tea, and afterwards, feeling sleepy, he went fast asleep.

He awoke to the ringing of the telephone-bell. It was quite dark. The telephone-bell continued to ring.

"Joseph!" he called.

The valet entered.

"What time is it?"

"After ten o'clock, sir."

"The deuce it is!"

He had slept over four hours!

"Well, answer that confounded telephone."

Joseph obeyed.

"It's a Mr. Bryany, sir, if I catch the name right," said Joseph.

Bryany! For twenty-four hours he had scarcely thought of Bryany, or the option either.

"Bring the telephone here," said Edward Henry.

The cord would just reach to his chair.

"h.e.l.lo! Bryany! Is that you?" cried Edward Henry gaily.

And then he heard the weakened voice of Mr. Bryany in his ear:

"How d'ye do, Mr. Machin. I've been after you for the better part of two days, and now I find you're staying in the same hotel as Mr. Sachs and me!"

"Oh!" said Edward Henry.

He understood now why on the previous day the dandy introducing him to his suite had smiled a welcome at the name of Alderman Machin, and why Joseph had accepted so naturally the command to take a bath. Bryany had been talking. Bryany had been recounting his exploits as a card.

The voice of Bryany in his ear continued:

"Look here! I've got Miss Euclid here and some friends of hers. Of course she wants to see you at once. Can you come down?"

"Er--" He hesitated.

He could not come down. He would have no evening wear till the next day but one.

Said the voice of Bryany:

"What?"

"I can't," said Edward Henry. "I'm not very well. But listen. All of you come up to my rooms here and have supper, will you? Suite 48."

"I'll ask the lady," said the voice of Bryany, altered now, and a few seconds later: "We're coming."

"Joseph," Edward Henry gave orders rapidly as he took off his coat and removed the pocketbook from it. "I'm ill, you understand. Anyhow, not well. Take this," handing him the coat, "and bring me the new dressing-gown out of that green cardboard box from Rollet's--I think it is. And then get the supper menu. I'm very hungry. I've had no dinner."

Within sixty seconds he sat in state, wearing a grandiose yellow dressing-gown. The change was accomplished just in time. Mr. Bryany entered, and not only Mr. Bryany, but Mr. Seven Sachs, and not only these, but the lady who had worn a red hat at lunch.

"Miss Rose Euclid," said Mr. Bryany, puffing and bending.

CHAPTER IV

ENTRY INTO THE THEATRICAL WORLD

I.

Once, on a short visit to London, Edward Henry had paid half a crown to be let into a certain enclosure with a very low ceiling. This enclosure was already crowded with some three hundred people, sitting and standing. Edward Henry had stood in the only unoccupied spot he could find, behind a pillar. When he had made himself as comfortable as possible by turning up his collar against the sharp winds that continually entered from the street, he had peered forward, and seen in front of this enclosure another and larger enclosure also crowded with people, but more expensive people. After a blank interval of thirty minutes a band had begun to play at an incredible distance in front of him, extinguishing the noises of traffic in the street. After another interval an oblong s.p.a.ce, rather further off even than the band, suddenly grew bright, and Edward Henry, by curving his neck, first to one side of the pillar and then to the other, had had tantalising glimpses of the interior of a doll's drawing-room and of male and female dolls therein.

He could only see, even partially, the interior half of the drawing-room,--a little higher than the heads of the dolls,--because the rest was cut off from his vision by the lowness of his own ceiling.

The dolls were talking, but he could not catch clearly what they said, save at the rare moments when an omnibus or a van did not happen to be thundering down the street behind him. Then one special doll had come exquisitely into the drawing-room, and at the sight of her the five hundred people in front of him, and numbers of other people perched hidden beyond his ceiling, had clapped fervently and even cried aloud in their excitement. And he, too, had clapped fervently, and had muttered "Bravo!" This special doll was a marvel of touching and persuasive grace, with a voice--when Edward Henry could hear it--that melted the spine. This special doll had every elegance, and seemed to be in the highest pride of youth. At the close of the affair, as this special doll sank into the embrace of a male doll from whom she had been unjustly separated, and then straightened herself, deliciously and confidently smiling, to take the tremendous applause of Edward Henry and the rest, Edward Henry thought that he had never a.s.sisted at a triumph so genuine and so inspiring. Oblivious of the pain in his neck, and of the choking foul atmosphere of the enclosure, accurately described as the pit, he had gone forth into the street with a subconscious notion in his head that the special doll was more than human, was half divine.

And he had said afterwards, with immense satisfaction, at Bursley: "Yes, I saw Rose Euclid in 'Flower of the Heart.'"