"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."