“I wasn’t meaning that. Look here, Chown, are you coming in to see my show to-night?”
“Well—” Mr. Chown’s whole anatomy, as seen above the table, was apology incarnate.
“No. You’re not. I didn’t think it and that’s why I didn’t ask at once. It’s some one at the Palace you’ve come to see, isn’t it?”
“What makes you think so?”
“Well, there’s nothing else in Staithley.” The theater is self-insulating. “And you haven’t come here for your health. But, if you’ll excuse my saying it, they don’t dress for the theater, let alone the Palace, and if you go there as you are, they’ll throw things at you from the gallery.”
“Montagu, I shan’t forget this kindness,” said Chown.
“You put me under obligation to you. But—did you never hear of an Eisteddfod?”
“Is it a new act on the halls?” asked Mr. Montagu, who did not rapidly clear his mind of an obsession.
Mr. Chown smiled. “Not yet,” he said, but “out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,” he thought, mentally filing an idea for future reference.
“Wait a moment,” said Mr. Montagu. “Why am I thinking of Lloyd George?”