"Yes, my wife's away in Birmingham, so I won't go home till morning."
Gobion went back to the box, where he found Moro de Minter, the new humourist, making himself agreeable. Gobion knew the man slightly, and hated him. People said his real name was Gluckstein, and he was reported to have been a ticket collector at Euston before he had come out as the apostle of the ridiculous. He was holding forth on his latest book, and he asked Gobion what he thought of the new humourists.
"I have only met two sorts," he answered, "the disgustingly facetious and the facetiously disgusting. Both are equally nasty."
Miss Leuilette was rather nettled; she liked Minter.
"And what do you think of the new critics of The Pilgrim type, Mr. Minter?" she asked.
"They squirt venom from the attic into the gutter, and nobody is ever hurt." After which passage of arms he left the box, and the curtain went up on the Inn at Shepperford.
After the play Gobion saw the ladies into their carriage, and Mrs. Picton, as she pressed his hand, whispered him to come to tea the next day.
"I shall be quite alone," she said, with a side look.
Then came the "copy shop" and a noisy supper, at which the latest sultry story of a certain judge's wife was repeated and enjoyed.
It struck Gobion more than ever what a drunken, rakish lot these men were, but still he was very little better, only less coarse in his methods, and it didn't matter.