Henry undressed. A smart man with hair like a looking-glass came in, stared and went out again. Two attendants watched sympathetically. After some time the stud was arranged, and Henry was dressed again.
“You’d better just let me tie your tie,” said Philip. “It’s so difficult in here. One can’t see to do it oneself.”
Henry said nothing. He brushed his hair again, suffered himself to be dusted and patted by the attendant, and followed Philip into the restaurant. He was so miserable that suicide was the only alternative to a disgraced and dishonoured life. He was sure that everyone in the restaurant was laughing at him; the grave waiter who brought him his soup, the fat, round button of a waiter who brought the champagne in a bucket of ice, the party opposite, two men and two women (beasts!), all these were laughing at him! His forehead was burning, his heart deadly cold. He glared at Philip, gulped down his food without knowing at all what it was that he was eating, said “yes” and “no”; never looked at Philip, but stared, fiercely, round him as though he were looking for someone.
Philip persisted, very bravely, in a succession of bright and interesting anecdotes, but at last he flagged. He was afraid that he had a terrible evening before him ... never again....
“He’s thinking,” said Henry to himself, “that I’m impossible. He’s wondering what on earth he asked me for. Why did he if he didn’t want to? Conceited ass ... that about the stud might have happened to anyone. He’ll tell Katherine....”
“Coffee?” said Philip.
“No, thank you,” said Henry.
“All right. We’ll have it later. We’d better be getting on to the show. Ready?”
They moved away; they were in a cab; they were caught into the heart of some kaleidoscope. Lights flashed, men shouted, someone cried in a high treble. Lights flashed again, and they were sitting in the stalls at the “Empire” music-hall. Henry hailed the darkness with relief; he felt as though his body were bruised all over, and when he looked up and saw a stout man upside down on a tight-rope he thought to himself: “Well, he can’t see me anyhow.... He doesn’t know that the top of my stud came off.”
There followed then a number of incredible people. (It must be remembered that he had never been to a music-hall before.) There was a man with two black eyes and a red nose who sang a song about the wives he had had (seven verses—one wife to every verse), there was a stout lady who sang about porter, and there were two small children who danced the Tango—finally a gentleman in evening dress and a large white button-hole who recited poems whilst his friends in the background arranged themselves in illustrative groups. In this strange world Henry’s soul gradually found peace. It was a world, after all, in which it was not absurd to grope on one’s knees for the top of one’s stud—it was the natural and clever thing to do. When the lady who sang about the porter kissed her hand to the audience, Henry, clapping enthusiastically, felt a throb of sympathy. “I’m so glad she’s been a success to-night,” he thought to himself, as though she had been his cousin or his aunt. “She’ll feel pleased.” He wanted, by this time, everyone to be happy.... When, at the last, the fat man in evening clothes recited his tale of “the good old British Flag,” and was surrounded instantly by a fluttering cloud of Union Jacks, Henry was very near to tears. “I’ll make them send me to Oxford,” he said to himself. “At once ... I’ll work like anything.”