"I think one will do ... I may possibly send for my own car."
He drove to Quayther & Cuthering"s in his electric brougham and there dropped casually the name of Winkworth. He explained humorously his singular misadventure of the _Minnetonka_, and was very successful therewith--so successful, indeed, that he actually began to believe in the reality of the adventure himself, and had an irrational impulse to dispatch a wireless message to his bewildered valet on board the _Minnetonka_.
Subsequently he paid other fruitful visits in the neighbourhood, and at about half-past eleven the fruit was arriving at Wilkins"s in the shape of many parcels and boxes, comprising diverse items in the equipment of a man-about-town, such as tie-clips and Innovation trunks.
Returning late to Wilkins"s for lunch he marched jauntily into the large brilliant restaurant and commenced an adequate repast. Of course he was still wearing his mediocre lounge-suit (his sole suit for another two days), but somehow the consciousness that Quayther & Cuthering were cutting out wondrous garments for him in Vigo Street stiffened his shoulders and gave a mysterious style to that lounge-suit.
At lunch he made one mistake and enjoyed one very remarkable piece of luck.
The mistake was to order an artichoke. He did not know how to eat an artichoke. He had never tried to eat an artichoke, and his first essay in this difficult and complex craft was a sad fiasco. It would not have mattered if, at the table next to his own, there had not been two obviously experienced women, one ill-dressed, with a red hat, the other well-dressed, with a blue hat; one middle-aged, the other much younger; but both very observant. And even so, it would scarcely have mattered had not the younger woman been so slim, pretty and alluring.
While tolerably careless of the opinion of the red-hatted, plain woman of middle-age, he desired the unqualified approval of the delightful young thing in the blue hat. They certainly interested themselves in his manoeuvres with the artichoke, and their amus.e.m.e.nt was imperfectly concealed. He forgave the blue hat, but considered that the red hat ought to have known better. They could not be princesses, nor even t.i.tled aristocrats. He supposed them to belong to some baccarat-playing county family.
The piece of luck consisted in the pa.s.sage down the restaurant of the Countess of Ch.e.l.l, who had been lunching there with a party, and whom he had known locally in more gusty days. The Countess bowed stiffly to the red hat, and the red hat responded with eager fulsomeness. It seemed to be here as it no longer was in the Five Towns; everybody knew everybody! The red hat and the blue might be t.i.tled, after all, he thought. Then, by sheer accident, the Countess caught sight of himself and stopped dead, bringing her escort to a standstill behind her. Edward Henry blushed and rose.
"Is it _you_, Mr. Machin?" murmured the still lovely creature warmly.
They shook hands. Never had social pleasure so thrilled him. The conversation was short. He did not presume on the past. He knew that here he was not on his own ashpit, as they say in the Five Towns. The Countess and her escort went forward. Edward Henry sat down again.
He gave the red and the blue hats one calm glance, which they failed to withstand. The affair of the artichoke was for ever wiped out.
After lunch he went forth again in his electric brougham. The weather had cleared. The opulent streets were full of pride and sunshine.
And as he penetrated into one shop after another, receiving kowtows, obeisances, curtsies, homage, surrender, resignation, submission, he gradually comprehended that it takes all sorts to make a world, and that those who are called to greatness must accept with dignity the ceremonials inseparable from greatness. And the world had never seemed to him so fine, nor any adventure so diverting and uplifting as this adventure.
When he returned to his suite his private corridor was piled up with a numerous and excessively attractive a.s.sortment of parcels. Joseph took his overcoat and hat and a new umbrella and placed an easy-chair conveniently for him in the drawing-room.
"Get my bill," he said shortly to Joseph as he sank into the gilded fauteuil.
"Yes, sir."
One advantage of a valet, he discovered, is that you can order him to do things which to do yourself would more than exhaust your moral courage.
The black-calved gentleman-in-waiting brought the bill. It lay on a salver and was folded, conceivably so as to break the shock of it to the recipient.
Edward Henry took it.
"Wait a minute," he said.
He read on the bill: "Apartments, 8. Dinner, 1, 2s. 0d. Breakfast, 6s. 6d. Lunch, 18s. Half Chablis, 6s. 6d. Valet"s board, 10s.
Tooth-brush, 2s. 6d."
"That"s a bit thick, half-a-crown for that tooth-brush!" he said to himself. "However--"
The next instant he blenched once more.
"Gosh!" he privately exclaimed as he read: "Paid driver of taxi-cab, 2, 3s. 6d."
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 inquiry. 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 pocket-book 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: