“This is very suddan,” said the intelligent-looking man, speaking in the high neighing protesting accent of an English scholar and gentleman, as he yielded himself to Sargon’s grip.
§ 4
The actual invasion of the Rubicon Restaurant was a confused and swift affair. Sargon’s mind was clear and simple now; he had to make that vision of a long white table with his disciples grouped about him a reality or incur a great defeat. His following was animated by a mixture of unequal and incompatible motives, as all followings are, and it was now swollen to something near thirty—the exact number is uncertain because it passed marginally into mere onlookers and passers-by—by the action of the least worthy of the three out-of-work ex-soldiers, who had been uttering these magic words, “A Free Feed!” ever since the Rubicon Restaurant had been in sight.
The attention of that challenging individual, the outside porter, had happened to be distracted by the arrival of guests in a motor car when the Sargonites came along. They therefore swept through the outer entrance without encountering any obstacle other than the rotating door, which chopped the little crowd into ones and twos before it reached the entrance hall. Perhaps twenty got into the entrance hall, that space of marble and mahogany and hovering cloak-room attendants, before the mechanical incompetence of the man in deep mourning and his subsequent extraction by the politely indignant outer porter, the costermonger’s assistant intervening unhelpfully, jammed the apparatus. The man with the bruised shin seems to have fallen out before the restaurant was reached, and the vague-faced young woman in the magenta had drifted away at some unnoted moment.
In the spacious, glittering and observant outer hall a tendency to dispersal manifested itself. The out-of-work ex-soldier with the organ, seized by a sudden shyness, made for the gentleman’s cloak-room to deposit his instrument and became involved in an argument with his colleagues. The two ambiguous young men in caps and neck-wraps seem to have hesitated about the correctness of their costume. But Sargon held the newly caught gentleman tight, and the venerable match-seller did not mean to be separated from his patron in this bright, luxurious, dangerous place. Mr. Kama Mobamba, tall and smiling and shining, handed hat and umbrella to an attendant and followed closely upon the Master, serene in his assurance that these were the lordly portals of the long sought firm of African traders, Lean and Mackay. And Mr. Godley, with his natural passion for explicitness, would not leave Sargon until he had made it perfectly clear to him why he did not feel bound to accompany him further. He came next after the others into the Large Restaurant, making noises like a cuckoo clock that has lost control of itself. The reporter from Oldham was also holding on, though in considerable doubt now what sort of story he would have to write. The Eton boy, more than half aware now of his error, and so disposed to be a little detached also, came into the restaurant after depositing hat and umbrella without.
Bobby never came through. He was overtaken and held up in the entrance hall by Billy. “This isn’t your affair, Bobby,” said Billy. “This really isn’t your affair.”
“I can’t make out what he’s up to,” said Bobby. “He’s bound to get into trouble.”
“Never mind.”
“But I do mind.”
“The management’s scared,” said Billy. “They’re sending for the police. There’s a crowd gathered outside. Look at the faces looking in. See that chap peering through the hole in the glass? Nice thing for Tessy and Susan if we get into some police-court scrape.”