“On Thursday,” he would say, “I took Mary Loraine to lunch at the Grand Midland, and she said . . .” or “I saw Tommy Fane in his dressing-room the other night, and he said: ‘Look here, old boy. . . ’” Apparently all Griffin’s theatrical friends called him “old boy.” The effect of these narrations on Griffin would be so exhausting that he found it necessary to order more whisky all round. The manager himself would bring it in; a brilliant gentleman named Juniper with red baggy cheeks the laxness of which was compensated by a waxed moustache that stuck out on either side as if a skewer had transfixed them. To Griffin this magnificent creature was most decorous; for the White Horse was one of Astill’s houses, and Griffin had taken the trouble to inform him that the great Sir Joseph was his uncle. In spite of, rather than as a result of these meetings, the panto-night arranged itself. The date was fixed, the bouquets and presents purchased, the announcements in the papers that warned any patrons of pantomime that on this particular night they could not hope to see a normal performance, inserted. Griffin, in the Common Room, became a centre of feverish importance, and even Edwin, in spite of the superciliousness of Martin, and the rough chaff of W.G., caught a little of the reflected glamour.
Edwin now had to face the ordeal of announcing the approach of panto-night to his father. If he were to see the thing through, as was his duty as a member of the committee, it would be quite impossible for him to catch the last train to Halesby, which left North Bromwich at nine-thirty, except on Thursday and Saturday night. Mr. Ingleby, hearing, saw the pit gaping beneath Edwin’s feet. “You didn’t mention this to me before. . . . I suppose you have had to spend quite a lot of time at these committee meetings? I think it was rather unwise of you to undertake it in your first year. . . . There’s only four months before your examination.”
“Oh, I think the exam. will be all right,” said Edwin airily.
“I don’t like to hear you speak like that, Edwin,” said his father. “Over-confidence is a dangerous thing.”
“But it wouldn’t be any better pretending that I didn’t think it was all right, surely?”
“Well, humility is a great virtue.”
“Not any greater than honesty.”
“It’s all very well to talk about honesty; but it would have been more honest, wouldn’t it, if you’d told me that”—he hesitated—“this was going on?”
“There you are. . . . That’s the whole point. If I told you everything you wouldn’t sleep for imagining things that hadn’t happened. It’s the thing that’s worried me ever since I was at school. If you’re absolutely honest with other people, life simply isn’t worth living, because they don’t understand it. It isn’t done. I’ve come to the conclusion, father, that the only thing that really matters is to be honest with yourself.”
“If you can trust yourself—”