"I do know one or two men," he said, "who are interested in some of the musical-comedy syndicates. Shall I try them?"
"Will you reelly? You'll be a duck if you do," said Mrs. Gaymer.
After the deliverance of this unsolicited testimonial Hughie's guest observed that she must be getting home, and Hughie, having put her into a cab and paid the driver, retired to his club, clogged with viscous champagne and feeling excessively unwell, to wait until it should be time for him to follow her.
To look at the double row of eligible residences which composed Talbot Street, Balham, you would hardly have suspected that any of them would support what the Inland Revenue Schedule calls a "male servant." And yet, when Hughie rang the bell of Number Nineteen, the door was opened by such an appanage of prosperity. He was an elderly gentleman with a rheumy but humorous eye, and a nose which suggested the earlier stages of elephantiasis. He wore a dress-coat of distinctly fashionable cut (which, needless to say, did not fit him) and the regulation white shirt and collar, the latter quite two sizes too small; but his boots and trousers apparently belonged to a totally different class of society.
"Name of Marrable?" he enquired, smiling benevolently upon Hughie.
"Yes."
"Step in. We've been expectin' of you for 'alf-an-hour. Don't wipe your boots on that mat. It's worth one-and-eight."
After this somewhat remarkable confidence, the Gaymers' major-domo conducted the visitor upstairs. Here he threw open a door with truly theatrical grandeur, and announced,—
"'Ere's the young toff for you, my de—"
"Thank you, James: that will do," interposed Mrs. Lance Gaymer, with a very fair imitation of the manner of a musical-comedy duchess. "How do you do, Mr. Marrable?"