“Look ’ere, Paul Pangbutt—the boys have come to give old Jack Lawrence a house-warming—down the street, you know.”
“Indeed!” said Pangbutt icily; and with cutting coldness he added: “I presume that this news should interest me!”
Rippley was hugely pleased:
“Yes, rather! He’s setting up a studio almost next door to you—but the old rip isn’t in this evening; so, as we have the beer and stuff in a dray outside, we’ve converted it into a surprise party for you instead, d’you see?”
Pangbutt’s blanched face was moved to a sneer:
“Really, so spontaneous an honour cannot but flatter,” he said.
“Of course,” roared Rippley jovially. He went up to his sulky host and slapped him on the shoulder. It floated through Pangbutt’s mind with something like a twinge of jealousy that they had never given him a house-warming when he took his studio, months ago now.
“Oh, yes,” he said bitterly—“make yourselves at home.”
The sculptor gave him a sounding thump on the shoulder:
“That’s a good generous fellow!” cried he, and winked at the others. “All the scum of Bohemia is coming here to-night. We have invited ’em—in your name.... Of course you don’t mind. I said you wouldn’t.”