“Did you want me?”
“There’s no hurry, old boy,” said Noll, and added grimly: “It can wait.”
“That’s right,” said Horace, pushing a chair towards him with his foot. “There’s the bottle by you—and a glass—and the dried cabbage of Egypt. Set it ablaze and talk.”
Horace struck a match on the seat of his breeches as Noll flung into the chair, and handed the flame to him; and Noll, setting the light to a cigarette, saw the faces of Bartholomew Doome and four of the Five Foolish Virgins in the gloom.
The light went out.
“Your room’s all dismantled, Horace,” said he.
“Yes,” said Horace—“I’m off home. I was just sending Jonkin with a note to tell you. I’m giving my farewell feast of departure to-morrow night—next day I’m off.”
“Why?”
Horace shifted uneasily in his chair; and then he laughed.
“My father’s become chairman of his newspaper company; and he’s going to give an address to a learned society on the Dignity of Literature.... I can’t stand that.... After all, one is more or less responsible for one’s father.... Indeed, the drawback of having a father is that he has the right to bear the same name.”