Now the man who drove the taxi judged tips by wealth and wealth by external signs. So he said, with simple judgment, “The Splendide?”
His fare nodded hastily and got in. Anywhere would do. Here again the name was perfectly familiar to him. The picture of the big hotel in his mind was quite clear. He could have told you exactly where it was in London. But for the soul of him he couldn’t have told you how he knew. He nodded, and the rotor cab jerked and plunged and pulled up sharp and jerked forward again for its half-hour to the Splendide, with the stricken man inside concentrating away for dear life and getting nowhere.
During the Berkeley Street block, and to the whirring of the mighty little engine and the shaking of the cab, he suddenly shouted PETRE at the top of his voice. The driver opened the door sharply and barked at him, “What say?”
“Nothing,” said the greatly relieved man, sighing deeply. “I was talking to myself.”
The taxi driver slammed the door, looked at the policeman whose hand still barred the traffic, jerked his thumb towards the inside of his cab, touched his forehead and smiled. The policeman also deigned to smile. Then the flood was released and they jerked off again.
Petre, that was it ... Petre.... That was his name! But what Petre? He could not tell. The sound was perfectly clear and perfectly familiar.... Petre. Petre it was: he was quite certain of that.—Thank God, he was certain of that!... And during the next three blocks in the traffic his certitude grew firmer and firmer. He clung to the protection of that word Petre as does a drowning man to a deck chair. That was something to go on, anyhow.... He could not see it as P-e-t-e-r or P-e-t-r-e. It was only the sound he was sure of. But when he came to think of it, it must be Petre, for he had not in his mind any savor, not even the slightest, of a grotesque connotation, and if it had been “Peter,” however familiar to him, it would have sounded a little silly in his ears.... No, it must certainly be Petre. It was a good name.... There was—he had a vague idea—a Lord Petre. He did not think he was—or had been—a lord. He would have remembered that at least, though all the rest had gone. No, it was Mr. Petre all right.... Mr. something Petre, as Mr. J. Petre.... But what was that Christian name, or those Christian names?
He had reached the Splendide. Mr. Petre (for he could now securely call himself by his right name, an anchor-hold in such an awful tide) got out and vastly overpaid the cab. The new rotor cabs had the fare marked up in large red ticking figures inside. It was a rule brought in by Jessie Anderson when she was at the Home Office in the last Administration. It had always annoyed her to peer through the glass, and she was no longer young. Mr. Petre quite understood the meaning of those figures; shillings and pence were familiar to him and the connection of their symbols with the coins in his hand was part of himself, though he could not have told you where or when he had last handled such coins.
Now and then he would hesitate over a detail. He had puzzled a minute before getting the name of Oxford Street as they crossed it. But the run of London life was as common to him as to any of the myriads around. It was only the bond between them and his past self that had snapped.
He knew the Splendide. He knew the ritual of registration. He even knew the liveries with their absurd gold crowns. He knew it was strange to take a room without luggage. He feared resentment. Yet he rightly judged such eccentricity stood a better chance at the more expensive hotels than the less.
He was full of the ordeal before him, and he approached it rather nervously. But he put on as bold a front as he could, and gave the name “Petre” in rather a loud voice, and with that slight American intonation which was his though he knew it not.