And to-day he had been drinking restaurant champagne "tres sec"—and two half-bottles of it! The excess was beginning to tell. It told in the slight flush on his cheeks, which, strange to say, did not make him look younger; it told in the tip he gave the waiter, and in the way he put on his hat. He had bought a walking-stick during his peregrinations, a dandy stick with a tassel—the passing fashion had just come in—and with this under his arm he left the café in search of pleasures new.
The West End was now ablaze, and the theatres filling. Simon, like Poe's man of the crowd, kept with the crowd; a blaze of lights attracted him as a lamp a moth.
The Pallaceum sucked him in. Here, in a blue haze of tobacco-smoke and to the tune of a band, he sat for awhile watching the show, roaring with laughter at the comic turns, pleased with the conjuring business, and fascinated—despite Cerise—with the girl in tights who did acrobatic tricks aided by two poodles and a monkey.
Then he found the bar, and there he stood adding fuel to pleasure, his stick under his arm, his hat tilted back, a new cigar in his mouth, and a smile on his face—a smile with a suggestion of fixity. Alas! if Cerise could have seen the Marquis de Grandcourt now!—or was it Madame who raised him to the peerage of France? If she could have been by to just raise her eyebrows at him! Yet she was there, in a way, for the ladies of the foyer who glanced at him not unkindly, taken perhaps by his bonhomie, and smiling demeanour and atmosphere of wealth and enjoyment, found no response. Yet he found momentary acquaintances, of a sort. A couple of University men up in town for a lark seemed to find him part of the lark; they all drank together, exchanged views, and then the University men vanished, giving place to a gentleman in a very polished hat, with diamond studs, and a face like a hawk, who suggested "fizz," a small bottle of which was consumed mostly by the hawk, who then vanished, leaving Simon to pay.
Simon ordered another, paid for it, forgot it, and found himself in the entrance hall calling in a loud voice for a hansom.
A taxi was procured for him and the door opened. He got inside and said, "Wait a moment—one moment."
Then he began paying half-crowns to the commissionaire who had opened the taxi door for him. "That's for your trouble," said Simon. "That's for your trouble. That's for your trouble. Where am I? Oh yes—shut that confounded door, will you, and tell the chap to drive on!"
"Where to, sir?"
Oppenshaw would have been interested in the fact that champagne beyond a certain amount had the effect of wakening Simon's remote past. He answered: