“What the devil are you staring at now?” he cried, looking up and meeting the glance of the waiter, who was watching him curiously. The man muttered a word of apology and hastened away.
At length he found the train he wanted, put a mark against it, and turned down the corner of the page. Then he fell into a profound reverie. Suddenly he started up, paid his bill and hurried away.
“Tom,” said the waiter who had attended on him, hailing a colleague. “See that cove just gone out?”
“Yes.”
“Should you know him again?”
“Swear to him anywhere,” was the laconic reply.
“’E’s a queer ’un. Look. ’E’s left his time-table that he kicked up such a blessed row about gettin’. Wonder where ’e’s a-goin’. Look ’ere, it’s turned down and marked.”
At that moment Roland had suddenly come to a standstill in the street, and like the proverbial Caledonian, was swearing “at large.” For it had dawned upon him that he had forgotten his A.B.C. Should he go back for it? No; too far. He would get another.
But little he dreamed what gigantic importance to his weal or woe that trivial act of forgetfulness would one day assume.
The cold was cutting, and just now a gust of driving sleet swept down upon him, and in contrast he became aware of the glaring portico of a variety theatre just in front. There at any rate he would be warm. Once within, seated, with something to drink in front of him, and smoking a cigar—the first for several long months—he gave himself up to a sheer sense of warmth and physical comfort, which, combined with the effects of the stimulants, produced a state of dreamy placidity. To the performance he paid no attention whatever. Turn after turn was the same, dull, tawdry, idiotic—but each intensely respectable in its vulgar way.