The high-priest was delighted with Mr. Priestley’s palate. He mentioned at the end of dinner, in the tones of one chanting a solemn anthem, that there was some Very Special Brandy in the cellars which even such a palate as Mr. Priestley’s would receive with awe and wonder. It was a Chance, the high-priest intimated, which would Not Occur Again. Mr. Priestley, now as mellow and glowing as an October sunset, fell in with the idea at once. He gave his palate its chance. The high-priest then chose Mr. Priestley a cigar, superintended the seven underlings who helped him into his overcoat, pocketed his remuneration with the air of one accepting alms for the deserving rich, and turned Mr. Priestley out into the night.
His very expensive cigar between his teeth, Mr. Priestley ambled down Jermyn Street, at peace with the world. His case was proved for the forty-ninth time, and now without a shadow of doubt; he was not a vegetable-marrow. Do vegetable-marrows dine alone in expensive restaurants, knowingly discuss palates with high-priests, and smoke the best cigars procurable? They do not.
“And neither, confound it!” observed Mr. Priestley aloud with sudden vehemence, “do snails!” And he winked surprisingly at a passing respectable matron. He was shocked at his action the next moment, but he was also guiltily pleased with it. Even Pat would admit that a hermit practically never winks at respectable ladies, even of safely mature years.
Mr. Priestley ambled on, feeling something like a cross between the devil and the deep blue sea.
The entrance to the tube station attracted his attention and he turned into it. It would be pleasant, he thought, to stroll through and have a look at the lights of Piccadilly Circus. For some reason obscure to him Mr. Priestley felt that he wanted lights, and plenty of them. He might even linger for a few minutes in Piccadilly Circus. It was a mildly devilish thing to do, he knew.
He took up his stand at the Circus entrance of the station and gazed benevolently out upon the scene, crowded with hurrying late-comers to the neighbouring theatres.
A lady with a very white nose and very red lips looked at him and diagnosed the two half-bottles under his waistcoat.
“Hullo, dear!” said the lady, with a winning smile.
Mr. Priestley started violently and plunged back into the station behind him like a rabbit into its burrow. The lady, diagnosing this time that she had failed to please, passed on. Mr. Priestley emerged again, properly ashamed of himself.
“That,” observed Mr. Priestley to himself, with considerable severity, “was the action of a snail. I ought to have returned that woman’s greeting and taken her off to some place of refreshment. A glass of port would probably have purchased her story, and I should have undergone an interesting and unprecedented experience. I should, in fact, as Pat counselled me, have had an Adventure. Never mind, the opportunity will probably occur again.” Which, as Mr. Priestley was communing with himself in the Piccadilly entrance of the Underground Railway, was no less than the truth.