This, I presume, had reference to the Eton boy at the back of the room, who came before time.
"With pleasure," I remarked. I opened the grand piano and commenced the first item. I had not been at it more than ten minutes when the two ladies got up, and, shaking hands with the hostess, said they were so sorry they could not stay any longer, but they had to meet some friends at another party before half-past five. I therefore continued the next twenty minutes of the sketch to the solitary boy, whose totally immovable face gave me no idea as to whether he was enjoying the entertainment or not. The room soon began to fill with extraordinary rapidity. At the conclusion of the entertainment the hostess again, in a whisper, asked if I still had the envelope quite safe. I pulled it half-way out of my breast coat-pocket, and said, with a smile and a nod, "It's all right, you see."
She laughed and replied:
"Oh, yes; I see it's all right."
At the foot of the stairs I encountered the Eton boy with the serious face. He had stayed till the very last. I said:
"Well, weren't you bored with all the rot I've been talking?"
He replied:
"No; it was awfully jolly. I wish there had been more of it."
There was no affectation about the boy, and his simple answer gave me much satisfaction.
If I had not spoken, he would have said nothing. How very different from the lady who has been talking on the staircase at the top of her voice, who has never once listened or even glanced towards the piano, but who, on seeing you pass by, greets you with: