“Aye,” said Tom, suspecting nothing.
One basis of his friendship with O’Rourke was that their evenings off happened to coincide, Tom’s from Victoria Station and Terry’s from the old-fashioned commercial hotel in Mosley Street, where he was an institution. Terry was a waiter, but Tom had not yet seen the connection between his friend’s profession and the Grammar School Conversazione. He was never very bright.
Terry had a hard head and a professional style, rather like a successful doctor’s bed-side manner, which wheedled more tips from commercial travellers than they gave at any other hotel in their rounds, but he had a sunken vein of poetic superstition and, when Anne interrupted them, he was explaining to Tom that he tolerated the Royal Hotel because he could see from its window the green of the grass outside the Infirmary. Manchester was Manchester because it lacked grass. The “good folk” couldn’t dance on granite sets: only on grass did one find fairy-rings and only where grass abounded were people blessed.
“You’ll not be wanting your dress-clothes next Wednesday night, I reckon,” said Anne, breaking in without apology.
“Why, no, Mrs. Branstone,” he said. “Wednesday’s the night when I dress like the public. I’ve gone into a strange hotel and been mistaken for an ordinary customer on a Wednesday night.”
“Then you’ll maybe not object to lending Tom your clothes next week. I want him to be mistaken for a swell.”
“There’s a shine on them,” objected Terry, “that you can see your face in.”
“Dress-clothes,” pronounced Anne, “are dressy when they shine. If you’ll put studs and a clean shirt in with them, I’ll be obliged, and I’ll send the shirt back washed.”
“But, Anne——” protested Tom.
“You hold your hush,” she said. “It’s settled. Go on about the fairies, Terry.”