VIII
That evening, feeling that he had earned a little recreation, he went to the Empire Theatre—not in Hanbridge, but in Leicester Square, London. The lease, with a prodigious speed hitherto unknown at Slossons', had been drawn up, engrossed and executed. The Piccadilly Circus land was his for sixty-four years.
"And I've got the old Chapel pulled down for nothing," he said to himself.
He was rather happy as he wandered about amid the brilliance of the Empire Promenade. But after half an hour of such exercise and of vain efforts to see or hear what was afoot on the stage, he began to feel rather lonely. Then it was that he caught sight of Mr. Alloyd, the architect, also lonely.
"Well," said Mr. Alloyd, curtly, with a sardonic smile. "They've telephoned me all about it. I've seen Mr. Wrissell. Just my luck! So you're the man! He pointed you out to me this morning. My design for that church would have knocked the West End! Of course Mr. Wrissell will pay me compensation, but that's not the same thing. I wanted the advertisement of the building.... Just my luck! Have a drink, will you?"
Edward Henry ultimately went with the plaintive Mr. Alloyd to his rooms in Adelphi Terrace. He quitted those rooms at something after two o'clock in the morning. He had practically given Mr. Alloyd a definite commission to design the Regent Theatre. Already he was practically the proprietor of a first-class theatre in the West End of London!
"I wonder whether Master Seven Sachs could have bettered my day's work to-day!" he reflected as he got into a taxi-cab. He had dismissed [179] his electric brougham earlier in the evening. "I doubt if even Master Seven Sachs himself wouldn't be proud of my little scheme in Eaton Square!" said he.... "Wilkins's Hotel, please, driver."